In 1998, an historic landmark legal settlement between 46 states and the major tobacco companies, – along with individual settlements with four other states – required the companies to pay more than $246 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs.
From an outbreak of mysterious lung-injury deaths to America’s near loss of measles elimination status, the beginning of the end of the U.S. HIV epidemic to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), CDC worked around the clock – and around the globe – to protect Americans from domestic and global health threats in 2019.
A pattern of harmful alcohol consumption, or heavy drinking, increases level of blood biomarkers indicating heart tissue damage, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the open access journal of the American Heart Association.
Air pollution is known to be a serious health risk –a cause of asthma, heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and a factor, according to the World Health Organization, in an estimated seven million deaths worldwide every year. A growing body of research suggests air pollution may also be harming our brains.
In recent years, new areas of study have opened up into how air pollution might affect our minds and the way we think and feel.
Although the CDC recommends that people get vaccinated for the flu early in the fall, getting vaccinated now can still be beneficial in protecting you from the flu virus. Furthermore, vaccination should continue to be offered throughout the flu season, even into January or later.
Prediabetes: An emerging health threat can lead to type 2 diabetes
December 9, 2019
Nearly 1 in 5 adolescents aged 12-18 years, and 1 in 4 young adults aged 19-34 years, are living with prediabetes, according to a new CDC studyexternal icon published in JAMAexternal icon Pediatrics.
Prediabetes is a health condition in which blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes.
"This report is further evidence that the tobacco industry is succeeding in addicting a new generation to nicotine."
December 6, 2019
Twenty-three percent of middle and high school students in the U.S. – a total of 6.2 million youth – have used a tobacco product in the past 30 days, according to the The National Youth Tobacco Survey results released yesterday.
Why that matters: Most long-term tobacco product use begins during adolescence – and tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in this country and many others.
The European Roadmap on Carcinogens – an initiative first launched in May 2016 in Amsterdam under the Dutch EU Presidency – was extended last week in Helsinki by organizations that included the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). The roadmap is a voluntary effort to raise awareness among workers and employers about the risks of exposure to carcinogens in the workplace.
Women in their 70s and 80s who were exposed to higher levels of air pollution experienced greater declines in memory and more Alzheimer’s-like brain atrophy than their counterparts who breathed cleaner air, according to USC researchers. The findings of the nationwide study, published in the journal Brain, touch on the renewed interest in preventing Alzheimer’s disease by reducing risk as well as hint at a potential disease mechanism.
The CDC says it has not yet determined the source of an outbreak of E. coli that has so far sickened people in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Maryland, Montana, Washington and Wisconsin. The CDC is coordinating with public health and regulatory officials in those states, along with the FDA, in its investigation into the outbreak.