A look at the latest developments at the CDC

The CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service was on the chopping block last year by the Trump administration. Scientists had a study assessing COVID vaccine effectiveness suppressed by its leadership. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention responds to disease trends and outbreaks. And recently, those include measles, ticks and contaminated cheddar cheese. Behind the scenes, much of the agency has been struggling to operate, with significant cuts to their staff and programs last year and low morale. But there was optimism this week as its premier fellowship program held a conference to celebrate 75 years of work. NPR's Pien Huang joins us. Pien, thanks so much for being with us. PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Hey, Scott. Thanks for having me. SIMON: What was this meeting about? HUANG: So this was a conference for the Epidemic Intelligence Service. These are the CDC's disease detectives. They get deployed around the world to investigate outbreaks. And at the conference, their fellows presented papers on measles detection, on botulism outbreaks and bat exposures. And this conference was significant because the program was on DOGE's chopping block last year, but it was spared. And Dr. Eric Pevzner is chief of the program. ERIC PEVZNER: Would I like more money to hire more officers? Of course. If Congress wants to write me a larger check, I'll take it. But right now we're still doing everything that we've always done. …