Was anyone else, like me, wondering how the little agency in Atlanta would handle the news on October 9, 2009 that revealed it to be both criminally incompetent and scientifically irrelevant?
For the moment, I’m using the word “criminal” informally; I don’t think we or they yet know for certain what is and is not prosecutable. I have no doubt it will be sorted out, and sooner rather than later. I’m guessing counsel for both CDC and NIH have been working overtime; the flop-sweat might actually be visible on some of those government brows in Washington next Thurdsay and Friday.
As for CDC, I think we can all agree how correct and perfectly appropriate—and smart—it would have been had the people responsible for the most horrific scientific gaffe of the century graciously retreated. Said NOTHING. Kept their heads down.
We might have savored the spectral silence of the lizard in retreat.
Not a chance.
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