Posted on 10/21/2025 4:33:58 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
ATLANTA (AP) — CDC researchers are being forced to skip a pivotal conference on infectious disease this week due to the government shutdown, missing out on high-level discussions not long after surges in measles and whooping cough hit the U.S.
IDWeek, the largest annual meeting of infectious disease experts in the nation, is the leading venue for experts to trade information about diagnosing, treating and preventing threats including bird flu, superbugs and HIV, among many other topics.
The CDC typically sends scores of researchers and outbreak investigators. But of the hundreds of speakers listed in the printed program for the four-day conference, about 10 were identified as CDC scientists. And even that small number didn’t show up.
The main reason is the government shutdown that started Oct. 1. Federal scientists aren’t being paid and conference appearances are postponed unless they are funded outside of annual government budgets.
The CDC has already lost a quarter of its workforce through layoffs, buyouts, resignations and other actions. And the Trump administration is trying to lay off hundreds more, an effort temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
“It’s the most painful irony of all” to see these actions by the administration amid serious threats, said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious disease researcher.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Schumer shutdown!
So postpone it for a couple of wks
Sounds like the type of conference we should never attend—or contribute to!
Considering what the medical establishment has become, this might not be a bad thing.
Oh Gosh! Now they will be ignorant! Now they will make bad decisions!
CDC has “experts”?
I worked for Honeywell in the eighties. In the seventies, Honeywell had developed a produced a product called the Standard Precision Navigator, an inertial navigation system. There were no customers, so Honeywell had laid off the engineers on that project. A couple of them continued to come to work and spend their time trying to market that system without pay. One Engineer made multiple trips on his own dime to do so. The Strategic Air Command decided to buy the system for their B-52 bombers, and it became Honeywell’s largest production contract which was then managed by that engineer.
This is the difference between civilian and government employees. Either your job is important, and you believe in it, or it’s just a paycheck.
After I retired, I approached a former employer with an idea and traveled extensively to sell the idea on my own dime. He did contribute when the travel got expensive and I would have led the effort had it succeeded. (It was anti-drone technology. But few people believed drones would be an issue at the unit level at that time.)
This year, IDWeek is in Atlanta. The CDC is in Atlanta. Sounds as if attending IDWeek isn’t really worth it.
Maybe the Democrats should vote to re-open it
Pivotal my ass! As pivotal as mandating a killer jab to 300,000 Americans? That f’n pivotal?
Yeah, we witnessed what the CDC’s experts are all about.
This is a silver lining to the Schumer Shutdown.
Nobody at these organizations knows how to hit the record button, save these earth-shatteringly important presentations to SharePoint or another platform, and send a link?
Hire a teenager for $15 an hour. They can stream it, edit it, compress it, add music and graphics, create a website or private server to host them, and populate them out on multiple platforms while simultaneously sucking on soda or munching on pizza.
Heck, offer some high-end gamer headphones on-line in exchange for the work and they will be dog-fighting for the opportunity.
I know. I have one living upstairs.
The papers will get published and will be on line.
After the CDC’s actions during COVID, having them miss meetings sounds like a very solid improvement. Note how our silly meaningless media chooses to pick meaningless subjects for their viewerless ‘nuzecasts’.
oh, no, no, no....AP wants us to think this knowledge will be kept secret.
See what you’re causing Donald ! Shame.
I am not seeing a downside. After what we witnessed during COVID, I am not seeing anything of worth coming out of that department.
So the out-of-towners won’t be there, which means there will be 10 people in the room instead of 15. I saw that episode on The Big Bang Theory.
They could still have the meeting if they wanted to. What is stopping them? How does the “government shutdown” prevent the meeting?
Let me guess: The conference was being held in Hawaii, Vegas, or Geneva Switzerland; suites for everyone.
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