On Tuesday, Oct. 1, a government shutdown furloughed more than 800,000 federal employees and left thousands to work without pay. The shutdown is taking a drastic toll on research funding across the country, and impacting the University community.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson said one effect is that the CDC will not be able to investigate multi-state outbreaks of contagious diseases such as Hepatitis A and the Cyclospora stomach bug, the latter of which has afflicted 643 people since June. Moreover, the CDC can no longer monitor the spread of influenza, just as flu season gets underway.
At the University, the shutdown will not affect the availability of flu shots, but it will significantly limit CDC’s capacity to warn people at high risk. Additionally, with more than half of CDC’s staff for tracking foodborne illness furloughed, food safety across the country is at stake.
The shutdown is also affecting the Food and Drug Administration’s operations. With almost half of the FDA’s personnel on furlough, the agency will cease most of its food-safety inspections, and new drug approvals will be halted.
In terms of research funding, the University receives millions of dollars every year from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health — funding that will stop during the shutdown. Additionally, researchers who depend on government-run collections, libraries, museums and databases will see their work halted, and some could may be placed on enforced leave, though not necessarily at this university.
The largest provider of money for research at American colleges, the NIH has already closed most of its operations and furloughed nearly three-quarters of its staff. The NIH budget was already cut by $1.5 billion this year, from $31 billion. Decreased funding could distress future medical advances in cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, depression and other debilitating diseases.
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