U.S. Federal Government Shutdown Impact on the ATA

The American Thyroid Association looks forward to welcoming our attendees at the 83^rd Annual Meeting of the ATA on October 16-20, 2013 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We wanted to provide a brief update to our attendees regarding the U.S. Federal government shutdown.

 The ATA will not be significantly impacted should the government remain shut down through our meeting dates. The ATA meeting is not dependent on Federal funds. The meeting will continue to be meaningful, offer the great science and the networking we are known for year after year.

While the Federal shutdown is very concerning to us and we are well aware of its impact across the States and beyond, we will continue with the meeting as planned. Access to Puerto Rico and the city of San Juan should not be impacted significantly either. There are Federal landmarks closed during the shutdown like the forts and the rainforest, but the city itself, the meeting facility and most destinations function as normal.

We have a small percentage, roughly 3-5%, of Federal participants who may be precluded from attending the meeting due to the shutdown. ATA will offer any Federal worker who cannot attend the meeting because of the shutdown a full registration refund. Federal attendees should complete and submit the ATA Refund Request Form to cancel a registration.

Any registrant, including Federal employees, needing to cancel a hotel reservation should do so directly with the individual hotels. Below are the telephone numbers to the ATA contracted hotels to contact to cancel hotel reservations.  Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel: 787-993-3500; Condado Plaza Hilton: 787-721-1000. ATA’s housing service EventSphere is no longer managing the ATA sleeping room block.

We will miss our colleagues who serve in the Federal government and are looking forward to their contributions at the next ATA meeting.

The American Thyroid Association