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White House Ebola response coordinator Ron Klain may have become an accidental folk hero to fans of crushing bureaucracy everywhere on Wednesday, when a U.S. senator asked high-ranking Obama administration officials to describe his work. The vague answers sounded like something plucked out of a Dilbert cartoon. 'Even though the President has named a so-called Ebola “czar” to coordinate our response,' Senate Appropriations Committee ranking Republican Richard Shelby complained, 'all reports indicate that he has no actual authority to direct government agencies here.' He asked two cabinet secretaries and two other experts what Klain has 'brought to the table' in...

The number of reported cases of sexually transmitted diseases reached a record high in the US last year, figures show, as officials warned that stretched services meant people were slipping through the "public health safety net". In its latest report, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said the sharp rise in syphilis was of particular concern.

Before dinner on July 29, 3-year-old Carter Roberts of Chesterfield, Va., seemed perfectly healthy. That evening, he vomited. When he woke up the next morning with a slight fever of 99 degrees, his mother, Robin Roberts, figured that he was coming down with a cold. The next morning, she found him collapsed on his bedroom floor. “Mommy,” she recalls him saying. “Help me, help me.” Carter could barely stand when she picked him up, and his neck was arched backward. “What was most alarming,” she said, “is he had no control over his right arm whatsoever.” In the hospital, Carter...

Bodily fluids such as tears, saliva, vomit, urine or stool may have the potential to transmit Zika, suggest the findings of an investigation into a highly irregular Zika case in Utah which produced the first death from the Zika virus in the United States.

If you’re an urban or suburban chicken farmer, there's a chance you may consider your egg-producing, feathered friends family. You may have even given your chickens names, and you certainly care about them deeply. But do you cuddle and kiss them? As of July 2016, there are 611 people in 45 states with salmonella poisoning from contact with backyard chickens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At least 138 people were hospitalized. “These outbreaks are expected to continue for the next several months since flock owners might be unaware of the risk of salmonella infection from...

Federal Register | Control of Communicable Diseases (CDC Quarantine rule changes) https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2016/08/15/2016-18103/control-of-communicable-diseases#h-10 The Federal Register The Daily Journal of the United States Government Proposed Rule Control of Communicable Diseases A Proposed Rule by the Health and Human Services Department on 08/15/2016 This document has a comment period that ends in 42 days (10/14/2016) Submit a formal comment Publication Date:     Monday, August 15, 2016 Agency:     Department of Health and Human Services Dates:     Written or electronic comments on the NPRM must be received by October 14, 2016. Action:     Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). Shorter URL:     https://federalregister.gov/a/2016-18103 Related...

Last Friday, a friend doing research at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta sent me a photo of a display at the CDC’s in-house museum. She thought I’d be interested because it had to do with the cholera epidemic in Haiti, which I lived through at its beginning and have been reporting on ever since.

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual high school students are significantly more likely to be the victims of physical and sexual violence and bullying than other adolescents, according to new government data. In the first nationally representative study of LGB teens, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that these students were three times more likely to have been forced to have sexual intercourse and two times more likely to have experienced sexual or physical dating violence when compared to their heterosexual peers. Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, told CBS...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — General Mills is expanding a flour recall issued over a possible link to an E. coli outbreak after four new illnesses were reported. The recall announced Monday covers several varieties of Gold Medal and Signature Kitchens flour produced on certain dates through February 10. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said flour produced at a General Mills plant in Kansas City, Missouri, is a likely source of the outbreak, which so far has sickened 46 people in 21 states. The CDC says 13 have been hospitalized, and one person has developed a type of kidney...

The Obama administration has awarded $270,000 to an Islamic charity that has been outlawed by some governments for its support of the terror group Hamas and other jihadist organizations, according to grant documents. The Department of Health and Human Services has provided a $270,000 grant to Islamic Relief Worldwide, a charity that has repeatedly been linked to terrorism financing and support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, according to recent grant information. The grant was awarded as part of a larger project to provide health services in Nairobi, Kenya, through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the...

Antibiotic-resistant cases of the sexually transmitted illness gonorrhea have more than quadrupled in the United States. This new data, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, should serve as a warning that "the future of current treatment options may be in jeopardy," the agency said in a news release issued Thursday. "The confluence of emerging drug resistance and very limited alternative options for treatment creates a perfect storm for future gonorrhea treatment failure in the U.S.," said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, who directs the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention.

Combining Childhood Vaccines at One Visit Is Not Safe” published in the Journal of American Physicians Surgeons Volume 21, Number 2, Summer 2016. http://www.jpands.org/vol21no2/miller.pdf CDC’s VAERS Data Confirm Multiple Vaccines Given at Same Time Increase Morbidity and Mortality in Children Medical research journalist Neil Z Miller on the publication of an apparent retrospective analysis of CDC VAERS data titled “Combining Childhood Vaccines at One Visit Is Not Safe” published in the Journal of American Physicians Surgeons Volume 21, Number 2, Summer 2016. “Since 1990, the VAERS database has received more than 500,000 reports of suspected adverse reactions to vaccines.” "Our...

When Greg Burel tells people he's in charge of some secret government warehouses, he often gets asked if they're like the one at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Ark of the Covenant gets packed away in a crate and hidden forever. "Well, no, not really," says Burel, director of a program called the Strategic National Stockpile at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thousands of lives might someday depend on this stockpile, which holds all kinds of medical supplies that the officials would need in the wake of a terrorist attack with a chemical,...

When attempting to determine the statistical lethality of gunshot wounds, an important variable is often overlooked.  That is the intention of the shooter. It is not an easy variable to measure, but it is an overwhelming part of the dynamics of shooting situations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been collecting data on firearms injuries and fatalities for since 2001.  The individual years data have warnings that the numbers may be too small to be reliable, but there are significant advantages to the data set when looking at the aggregate numbers for the fourteen year period.  All...

The organization is making lobbying for gun control a top priority. The AMA, the country's largest doctor group, also vowed to lobby Congress to overturn a decades-old ban on gun violence research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "With approximately 30,000 men, women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of worship and on live television, the United States faces a public health crisis of gun violence," AMA president Dr. Steven Stack said in a statement. "Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed...

I've had a pretty good relationship with the CDC here in Atlanta. With one group, I stayed for six years, did very well by them, and supported two major web applications. Things change, though, and when my division decided on a technology that I had no interest in -- Dynamics -- I moved on to another promising group. That group was.... um... well, how can I say it. It was underwhelming in terms of procedure and culture. Developers are treated as commodities, and our knowledge and opinions are not barely noticed, much less respected. Further, the technology I was hired...

People with serious mental illnesses who use guns to commit suicide are often legally eligible to purchase guns, despite having a past record of an involuntary mental health examination and brief hospitalization, according to a new Duke Health analysis. The study, released in the June issue of Health Affairs, looked at gun use, violent crime and suicide among 81,704 people diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression in Florida’s Miami-Dade and Pinellas counties over 10 years starting in 2002. Over that time, 254 study subjects committed suicide -- nearly four times the average suicide rate of the general adult...

WASHINGTON (NEWSPLEX) -- Two pieces of legislation before the U.S. Congress deal with firearm safety and research and background checks. U.S. Senator Tim Kaine announced his support for the bills on Thursday, which is National Gun Violence Awareness Day. "I'm proud to support the CDC Research on Firearms safety or Gun Violence Prevention Act and the Fix Gun Checks Act - two commonsense pieces of legislation to reduce gun violence in our communities and ultimately save lives," said Kaine. "Congress cannot be complacent when gun violence remains so prevalent in American society." According to a release, a de facto ban...

(CNSNews.com) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says HIV infection rates are high among transgender women in the United States, and particularly high among black transgender women, compared to other groups. On its website page “HIV Among Transgender People,” the CDC cites a systematic review of various studies which showed that 28% of all transgender women had HIV. (A transgender woman is a biological male who identifies as a female.) Also, “56% of black/African American transgender women had positive HIV test results compared to 17% of white or 16% of Hispanic/Latina transgender women,” said the CDC. Black...

Federal health officials today said they believe "thousands" of people may have contracted the Zika virus before returning to the U.S. as they remain concerned that the virus might start to have ongoing transmission in the U.S. Speaking at a panel at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the Zika virus remains "pretty concerning" for experts as they learn how it affects pregnant women. "The reality is one bite, and if you’re pregnant, your baby might be harmed," Schuchat said at the panel today....