The Continuing Cost Of The Shutdown

Government workers got back to work yesterday but that doesn’t mean we have stopped feeling the effects of the Tea Party shutdown.  Particularly at scientific agencies, the effects of the shutdown linger:

“For instance, federal researchers have warned that the shutdown will force them to kill thousands of lab mice that are used for projects related to diseases like cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. Many of those animals need to be constantly monitored by scientists, so there’s no salvaging them now that researchers have been locked out of their labs for 16 days. Without being watched over, mice can also quickly procreate and create overcrowding that will force facilities like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to eliminate some of them.

And even when it comes to the research projects that didn’t rely on lab animals, unexpected time away can undermine potential breakthroughs. “Some of the shutdown’s impacts on research may be impossible to undo. Lost data will never be recovered and ephemeral field events will go undocumented,” Science Insider notes.

Federal agencies will also be sluggish for weeks because they’re currently backlogged. It will take the NIH extra time to wade through the grant applications that piled up while employees weren’t allowed to check their email. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will need to start up their influenza monitoring program again, and they’ll need to scramble to make up for lost time as flu season intensifies. The CDC is also behind when it comes to monitoring and analyzing a recent outbreak of salmonella that’s started to display signs of antibiotic resistance.”

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.