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Canceled health, climate meeting a ‘strategic retreat’

By MIKE STOBBE, Associated Press
Published: January 23, 2017, 10:13pm

NEW YORK — The government’s top public health agency has canceled a conference next month on climate change and health but isn’t saying why publicly.

But a co-sponsor was told by the Centers for Disease and Prevention that the agency was worried how the conference would be viewed by the Trump administration.

The incoming administration did not ask or order that the meeting be canceled, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

“They had no idea or not whether the new administration would be supportive,” said Benjamin, whose group was a co-sponsor of the event with the CDC.

Rather, the decision was “a strategic retreat,” intended to head off a possible last minute cancellation or other repercussions from Trump officials, Benjamin said Monday.

“They decided the better part of valor was to stop and regroup” until it could be discussed with Trump’s new health leadership, Benjamin said. A new CDC director has not been named.

He was echoed by Kristie Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was invited to speak at the conference.

“In the long run, climate change is affecting the health of Americans,” she said. “At some point, I hope they will go forward with the conference.”

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