The new year has brought with it renewed pledges to make 2012 the year we finally take on the childhood obesity epidemic. (See an earlier post about the controversial new tactics officials in Georgia are trying out .) Max Greenberg has his own thoughts on this front. Greenberg works for the National Wildlife Federation and Outdoors Alliance for Kids . He’s an avid promoter of unstructured physical activity to combat the childhood obesity epidemic. (Nearly 20 percent of children and adolescents are obese at last count according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .) Read full article > >

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Advice from a former obese kid

Only slightly more than one-quarter of Americans infected with the AIDS virus are getting the form of medical care that maximizes their life expectancy, according to a new estimate. The goal of AIDS treatment is to suppress growth of HIV until the virus is no longer detectable in the bloodstream. Only 28 percent of the 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States have their “viral load” controlled to that optimal degree, epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. Read full article > >

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Only 28 percent of Americans with HIV are getting optimal care

From al-Qaeda to neo-Nazis, numerous hate groups have fantasized of pulling off a deadly terrorist attack using the highly lethal extract of the castor bean known as ricin. None has ever succeeded in carrying out such plans. The four Georgians arrested this week in connection with an alleged terrorist plot may have been capable of advancing further than most amateur weaponeers, given their access to professional labs. (One had previously worked at the Centers for Disease Control, another for the Department of Agriculture.) But their chances for truly creating a weapon of mass destruction were tiny at best, biodefense experts say. Read full article > >

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Alleged ricin plot in Georgia was a long shot

Inconsistent reporting of foodborne illnesses such as listeria, salmonella and E. coli leaves large portions of the country vulnerable to the spread of potentially deadly outbreaks before health officials can identify their causes and recall contaminated foods. These three bacteria have caused at least 12 multi-state outbreaks this year, including the listeria infection traced to Jensen Farms’ cantaloupe. But salmonella is the leader, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the multi-state outbreaks reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the past five years. Read full article > >

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States vary widely in reporting foodborne illnesses

Joel Sarfati, a counselor for the Washington area’s long-term unemployed, has seen it all: Foreclosures, substance abuse, family battles and – worst of all – widespread depression that some experts say has reached startling proportions since the recession. About 9 percent of Americans were defined as clinically depressed in data released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, compared to an estimated 6.6 percent in data collected in 2001 and 2002. Read full article > >

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Mental toll of extended unemployment looms large

JOPLIN, Mo. — In the aftermath of the Joplin tornado, some people injured in the storm developed a rare and sometimes fatal fungal infection so aggressive that it turned their tissue black and caused mold to grow inside their wounds. Scientists say the unusually aggressive infection occurs when dirt or vegetation becomes embedded under the skin. In some cases, injuries that had been stitched up had to be reopened to clean out the contamination. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that it was conducting tests to help investigate the infections, which are so uncommon that even the nation’s largest hospitals might see only one or two cases a year. Read full article > >

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Some survivors of Joplin tornado develop rare fungal infection from dirt getting under skin

Anyone who has ever had a bedbug infestation knows full well what a nuisance the pests can be. Unlike ticks and mosquitoes, however, bedbugs are not known to spread disease, and they are generally not viewed as a major public health threat. But a peer-reviewed study published Wednesday in a journal of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that the pests could play a role in disease transmission. In a tiny sample of bedbugs, collected from patients living in crowded conditions in an impoverished neighborhood in Canada, researchers found the drug-resistant bacteria known as MRSA . Read full article > >

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Bedbugs may play role in spread of drug-resistant bacteria MRSA, study finds

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control publicly criticized a European study that found low-salt diets increased the risk of death from cardiovascular ailments.

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Low-Salt Diet Ineffective, Study Finds. Disagreement Abounds.

The implications are that many cancers are treatable, the director of the Centers for Disease Control said.

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Cancer Survivors in U.S. Rise by 20% in 6 Years

State public health officials are contacting airline passengers after a woman with measles traveled through three airports earlier this week, a spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.

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Travelers warned of measles exposure

A salmonella outbreak linked to alfalfa sprouts has sickened 89 people in 15 states and the District of Columbia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

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Salmonella linked to alfalfa sprouts

Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its annual update of sexually transmitted disease (STD) data for the United States. There are more than 19 million STD infections every year in this country. The 2009 data suggest a mixed bag of both progress and ongoing challenges to achieving sexual health in the nation when it comes to the three most commonly reported STDs: Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis. read more

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2009 STD Data in the United States: Not a Pretty Picture

Half of all Americans may be diabetic or prediabetic by 2020, a report from an insurance company warned Tuesday. That’s an even bleaker projection than the Centers for Disease Control’s recent estimate that one in three Americans would have diabetes by 2050.

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Four steps to reduce diabetes risk

If current obesity trends don’t change, one in three American adults will have diabetes by 2050, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Friday.

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Diabetes cases may triple by 2050

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show discouraging trends in the gay community’s fight against HIV. One in five sexually active gay men is HIV-positive, the CDC found. Even more shocking is that 44 percent of those infected…

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HIV Still Growing in Gay Community