Content about Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Obesity has risen dramatically across the United States in the last 30 years, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of the U.S. population is obese, including 17% of children and adolescents.


But one supermarket-pharmacy chain is doing its part to address the problem, especially among the young. Since early last year, Giant-Carlisle has been sponsoring a series of childhood obesity forums around the markets it serves in Pennsylvania and Virginia to discuss the problem and how to combat it.


ATLANTA — Sales of smoking-cessation products may realize a March boom following a recent government advertising campaign that encourages Americans to quit smoking.

One week following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's launch of its Tips from Former Smokers campaign, calls to the 1-800-QUIT-NOW quitline were up 130.4%, the agency reported Monday. Calls were up an additional 3.5% in the subsequent week.

A record 34,413 calls were fielded between March 26 and April 1, the CDC reported.

ATLANTA — Overall, the U.S. population has good levels of vitamin A and folate in the body, but some groups still need to increase their levels of vitamin D and iron, according to the "Second National Report on Biochemical Indicators of Diet and Nutrition," released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

ATLANTA — Mortality rates from all cancers combined continued to drop between 2004 and 2008 among men, women and children, according to the annual "Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2008."

ATLANTA — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday issued its latest update on the influenza season to date, or rather the lack thereof. For the week ended Feb. 25, visits for influenza-like illnesses have yet to crack the national baseline of 2.4% this season.

Over the past two seasons, 2009/2010 and 2010/2011, reports of ILI activity reached levels approaching 8% and 5%, respectively, after crossing over that 2.4% threshold — an indicator that the flu season is well under way.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services is providing $10 million in fiscal year 2012 funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Diabetes Prevention Program.

The NDPP is an initiative, authorized in 2010, which provides local communities with lifestyle change programs for preventing Type 2 diabetes. HHS' decision was praised by several groups, including the American Diabetes Association and the Diabetes Advocacy Alliance.

ATLANTA — The amount of trans fats found in blood levels of U.S. white adults has significantly dropped over a nine-year period, according to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

GLENVIEW, Ill. — Mead Johnson Nutrition CEO Stephen Golsby on Thursday announced that the company will be deploying a significant ad campaign to recapture any lost trust among moms because of an Enfamil "pull-and-hold" in December.

Retailers had pulled the product off their shelves out of an abundance of caution — the product had been consumed in the days prior to a child's death — but both the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later vetted Enfamil from having any link to that tragedy.

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — With at least a dozen states reporting confirmed cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, during the first three weeks of January, MinuteClinic is urging parents and guardians to obtain a DTaP shot (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) for unvaccinated children under 7 years old.  Booster shots, known as Tdap, also are encouraged for all pre-teens, teens and adults.

WASHINGTON — A joint program of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a new chairman.

John Buse of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine was appointed chair of the National Diabetes Education Program for a two-year term on Jan. 1. Buse succeeds Martha Funnell, who is a researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, as well as co-director of the Behavioral, Clinical, and Health Systems Intervention Research Core at the Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center.

WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association Educational Foundation on Tuesday launched the Up and Away and Out of Sight educational program to help educate parents on the importance of keeping their medicines in a safe place from children. In recent years, the number of accidental overdoses in children increased by 20%, the agency and association stated.