After the CDC indefinitely postponed a climate change summit scheduled for February in Atlanta, a group of new organizers, including former Vice President Al Gore, stepped up to sponsor the event in the agency's absence, according to NBC News.
Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director for the American Public Health Association, which originally joined the CDC as a co-sponsor of the event, told NBC News Mr. Gore reached out to keep the summit alive.
"I was minding my own business and he picked up the phone and called me," said Dr. Benjamin. "It was a hole in the world that needed to get filled."
Dr. Benjamin also said the CDC stepped away from the event shortly after President Trump's inauguration because of uncertainty regarding the incoming administration's views on climate change.
The Climate Reality Project, Harvard Global Health Institute in Cambridge, Mass., the University of Washington Center for Health and the Global Environment in Seattle and Howard Frumkin, MD, former director of the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health will also help organize the event.
"They tried to cancel this conference but it is going forward anyway," said Mr. Gore in a statement. "Today we face a challenging political climate, but climate shouldn't be a political issue. Health professionals urgently need the very best science in order to protect the public, and climate science has increasingly critical implications for their day-to-day work. With more and more hot days, which exacerbate the proliferation of the Zika virus and other public health threats, we cannot afford to waste any time."
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