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When is it okay to kill a zombie? The Walking Dead returns tomorrow night in the wake of a moral dilemma: Should zombies be killed on sight, or quarantined as sick humans? We look at some of the issues surrounding zombie murder, and want to hear what you think about the ethics of killing these infection-spreading cannibals. We open at the beginning of the zombie pandemic. There are rumblings of an infection on the news, of people who have turned suddenly violent and spreading disease through their bites. You look out the window and see a bloody-mouthed being shuffling in...

Back in 2003, responding to a CDC report on binge drinking, I noted that "one man's dinner party is another man's binge—especially if the other man has a degree in public health." Based on more recent survey data, the CDC now warns that "binge drinking* is a bigger problem than previously thought," involving 38 million American adults. That asterisk is well-earned, because the CDC continues to define "binge drinking" as "men drinking 5 or more alcoholic drinks within a short period of time or women drinking 4 or more drinks within a short period of time." If a "short period...

BELLEVUE, WA – This week’s revelation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that homicide is no longer among the leading causes of death in the United States – at a time when gun ownership is at an all-time high – shows that the gun ban lobby has been wrong, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today. “The CDC’s report for 2010 that removes homicide from the top 15 leading causes of death in this country coincides with a period of record high gun ownership,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “At the same...

With 38 million Americans involved in binge drinking, it is only a matter of time until the CDC calls for the repeal of the Twenty First Amendment.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — One of the government's top scientists says much more research is needed to determine the possible impacts of shale gas drilling on human health and the environment. "Studies should include all the ways people can be exposed, such as through air, water, soil, plants and animals," Dr. Christopher Portier wrote to The Associated Press in an email. Portier is director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

ATLANTA — Only 28 percent of the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV have the infection under control, increasing the risk that they will spread the disease to others, U.S. health officials said Tuesday. A big part of the problem is that one in five U.S. adults infected with HIV do not know it. People can be infected with the AIDS virus for years without developing symptoms. Of those who are aware, only half receive ongoing medical care and treatment, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its latest report on HIV in America. "It's now very...

BIOLOGICAL WAR-FEAR Smallpox vaccine usesfetal cell line Some Americans may refuse shot, worsening potential outbreak By Jon Dougherty © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com A company that would use a stem-cell line from an aborted fetus to manufacture a new smallpox vaccine is one of only a few firms being considered for a major new government contract despite concerns that the use of such tissues could lead many people to refuse the shots, thereby worsening any outbreak. The company, Acambis PLC of England, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, has already been contracted by the federal government to ...

RICHMOND, Va. - An outbreak of smallpox was the furthest thing from historian Dr. Paul Levengood's mind when his staff at the Virginia Historical Society put together an exhibit of "bizarre bits" that were added to the society's collection since its founding in 1831, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. There was Confederate president Jefferson Davis's cigar, confiscated by Union troops. There was a fungus carving of Robert E. Lee on his horse, Traveller, and a wreath made of human hair. Then someone mentioned a letter, handwritten and dated 1876, with what appeared to be a smallpox scab pinned inside...

Adjusted for population, the abortion rate among black women is roughly triple the national average. Citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, Cybercast News Service reported that African-Americans account for 36.5% of the nation’s abortions while making up 12.6% of nation’s population. Views among African-American leaders on abortion are split. President Barack Obama is a long-time advocate of abortion,who in the 2008 said he did not want to see his daughters “punished with a baby” if they became pregnant at 16. Republican Herman Cain is against abortion under any circumstances. He has attacked Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest chain...

The panel of experts that advises the CDC regarding vaccines has recommended that all boys 11 years and older get vaccinated with Merck's controversial Gardisil in order to prevent the spread of the human papillomavirus. Parents all over the nation are up in arms, saying a mandatory vaccine is crossing over into lifestyle choices, because HPV is sexually transmitted, and is not a "walking contagious" disease like mumps and measles. The absurdity of the whole issue is that without the vaccine, most humans create enough antibodies naturally to defeat papillomavirus within 2 years. Plus, much like the flu shot, it's...

In a shocking move, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today that the HPV vaccine Gardasil should be given to 11- to 12-year-old boys as well as girls. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously recommended routine vaccinations for boys to protect them from cancers related to the human papillomavirus, or HPV. Federal health officials usually adopt what the panel says and asks doctors and patients to follow the recommendations. Merck & Co. designed Gardasil to prevent sexually transmitted HPV infections, which can lead to genital warts and cervical cancer in women, and cancer of the penis...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Boys should be routinely vaccinated against the human papillomavirus or HPV in an effort to protect them from oral, anal and penile cancers, and to extend protection of girls from cervical cancer, U.S. vaccine advisers said on Tuesday.The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, voted unanimously to recommend routine use of Merck & Co's Gardasil in 11- and 12-year-old boys to fight the sexually transmitted virus, with 13 yes votes and one abstention.Previously, the CDC had said doctors are free to use the vaccine in boys but had...

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel recommended Tuesday routine vaccination of boys ages 11 and 12 with Gardasil, which protects against infection from human papilloma virus. The panel unanimously approved the plan, with 13 votes in favor and one abstention. The panel also advised that vaccinations with Gardasil begin in boys as young as 9 years old. The recommendation, from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, elevates the urgency placed on immunization against HPV, one of the most common sexually-transmitted diseases and a major cause of cervical cancer. Previously, doctors were free to use the vaccine in...

An award-winning senior health scientist has been arrested over allegations of bestiality and child molestation involving a six-year-old boy, according to police. Dr. Kimberly Quinlan Lindsey, 44, an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was charged with two counts of molestation and one count of bestiality on Sunday. Her live-in boyfriend, security guard Thomas Westerman, 42, also faces charges of two counts of child molestation. The acts are alleged to have taken place between January 2010 to August 2011, according to authorities. An investigation was started into the child molestation charges after a medical professional...

An official with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention faces molestation and bestiality charges after an investigation into allegations involving a 6-year-old in Georgia. The official, Dr. Kimberly Lindsey, is a deputy director with the CDC's Laboratory Science, Policy and Practice Program Office. Lindsey, 44, was arrested Sunday along with her boyfriend, Thomas Westerman, MyFoxAtlanta.com reports. Lindsey is being held in the DeKalb County Jail on a $25,000 bond, while Westerman was release on a $16,000 bond.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official was arrested Sunday and charged with two counts of child molestation and bestiality for sexual acts involving a 6-year-old boy. Kimberly Quinlan Lindsey's boyfriend, Thomas Westerman, was also arrested on two counts of child molestation, according to a DeKalb County criminal warrant. The pair surrendered to authorities Sunday afternoon, said DeKalb police spokeswoman Pamela Kunz. Lindsey, 44, serves as the deputy director for the Laboratory Science Policy and Practice Program Office at the CDC, according to her biography on the agency's website. The Emory University graduate, who's been with the CDC since...

Law-abiding politicians would deport illegal immigrants; the Obama administration spends scarce tax dollars assuring their well-being. Judicial Watch reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a ground-breaking new program to stamp out childhood obesity — among the children of illegals. (Apparently Americans aren’t the only ones who have “gotten a little soft.�) “Like all other child obesity war programs launched by the Obama Administration this one will target poor ethnic minorities,� writes Judicial Watch. But this program will serve “limited English� communities: [T]he CDC will spend $25 million on “innovative approaches” to reach low–income and minority families...

(NaturalNews) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which has been comprehensively exposed as a vaccine propaganda organization promoting the interests of drug companies, is now engaged in a household surveillance program that involves calling U.S. households and intimidating parents into producing child immunization records. As part of what it deems a National Immunization Survey (NIS), the CDC is sending letters to U.S. households, alerting them that they will be called by "NORC at the University of Chicago" and that households should "have your child's immunization records handy when answering our questions." (See copies of the letter, below.) This NIS vaccine...

At least 13 people are dead amid 72 sickened in 18 states in an outbreak of listeria food poisoning tied to contaminated cantaloupes, federal health officials said Tuesday. The latest confirmed as of Monday morning, according to Centers for Disease Control. But they may well rise in the still-widening outbreak that now ranks as the deadliest in the United States in more than a decade. Listeria is a common bacterium that typically causes mild illness in healthy people, but can cause severe illness in older people and those with compromised immune systems. It also can cause miscarriages and stillbirths in...

A Kansas resident died this week from what was likely a rare infection by a brain-eating amoeba - the fourth such case in the U.S. this year. State and local officials warned residents to avoid activities in warm rivers, lakes and other bodies of heated, fresh water, including ponds near power plants. Single deaths from such infections also have been reported this summer in Florida, Louisiana and Virginia. ... Naegleria fowleri moves into the body through the nose and destroys brain tissue. It almost always causes meningitis Symptoms of an infection include headache, fever, nausea and vomiting, stiff neck, confusion,...

A tick-borne infection known as Babesiosis, which can cause severe disease and even death, is becoming a growing threat to the U.S. blood supply, government researchers said on Monday. There are currently no diagnostic tests approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that can detect the infection before people donate blood.

Nearly half of all Americans experience mental illness at time point in life. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about half of all Americans will experience some form of mental health problems during their lifespan. THE CDC defined mental health problems as ranging from depression to post-traumatic stress disorder to suicide, noting that often these mental health problems are not addressed. The new CDC report, “Mental Illness Surveillance Among Adults in the United States,” describes the extent of mental illness among U.S. adults and recommends increased efforts to monitor mental illness and anxiety disorders. Most shocking...

The third case, in Louisiana, was more unusual. It was a young man whose death in June was traced to the tap water he used in a device called a neti pot. It's a small teapot-shaped container used to rinse out the nose and sinuses with salt water to relieve allergies, colds and sinus trouble. Health officials later found the amoeba in the home's water system. The problem was confined to the house; it wasn't found in city water samples, said Dr. Raoult Ratard, Louisiana's state epidemiologist. The young man, who was only identified as in his 20s and from...

Despite years of great progress in treating AIDS, the number of new infections with the virus that causes it has remained stubbornly around 50,000 a year for a decade in the United States, according to new figures released on Wednesday by federal officials. The American epidemic is still concentrated primarily in gay men, and is growing rapidly worse among young black gay men. That realization is causing a rift in the AIDS community. Activists say the persistent H.I.V. infection rate proves that government prevention policy is a flop. Federal officials are on the defensive even as they concede that the...

Federal officials say one person has died from salmonella poisoning that appears to be linked to eating ground turkey, but the government so far has declined to say who produced the meat or initiate a recall. Seventy-six people in 26 states have been made sick from the same strain of the disease, which the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is resistant to many commonly prescribed antibiotics. The CDC did not say where the person who died became sick and released no details about the death. The illnesses date back to March, and the CDC said Monday that...

Well that didn’t take long. Yesterday, in a post discussing a New York Times op-ed that called for heavy taxation on “unhealthy” foods, I asked, “How long before some starry-eyed but angry-faced Democrat proposes legislation to force ‘healthy food’ advertising?” Now The Daily Caller reports that food producers could face government regulations requiring “healthy” composition profiles for foods marketed to children two to seventeen years old.If enacted, new regulatory criteria will reclassify many foods which the FDA presently considers healthy as off limits for advertising to children. In the present formulations, eighty-eight of the top 100 most-consumed foods will be...

Tony the Tiger, some NASCAR drivers and cookie-selling Girl Scouts will be out of a job unless grocery manufacturers agree to reinvent a vast array of their products to satisfy the Obama administration’s food police. Either retool the recipes to contain certain levels of sugar, sodium and fats, or no more advertising and marketing to tots and teenagers, say several federal regulatory agencies. The same goes for restaurants. It’s not just the usual suspected foods that are being targeted, such a thin mint cookies sold by scouts or M&Ms and Snickers, which sponsor cars in the Sprint Cup, but pretty...

A confirmed case of measles has occurred in a Dallas County resident. This situation is being treated as a public health emergency because measles spreads easily and can cause serious illness and death. Local public health officials in Dallas and Polk counties are working with the Iowa Dept. of Public Health (IDPH) to determine who this individual may have exposed to measles and are at risk of becoming ill. Any individuals who visited the following locations at the listed times should check to make sure they have received two MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccines. Those older than their mid-50s and...

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) raised a few eyebrows Monday, when Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan posted, on CDC's official Public Health Matters blog, "Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse" (expect slow/difficult loading of the web page, which is apparently drawing vastly heavier web traffic than CDC is accustomed to dealing with). Here's what CDC recommends having on hand when the flesh-eating dead arise: So what do you need to do before zombies…or hurricanes or pandemics for example, actually happen? First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house. This includes things like water, food, and other supplies...

First, a religious group claims that the Rapture will happen this Saturday. Then this post mysteriously appears on the CDC’s official blog.If I see any locusts tomorrow, I’m barricading the door. There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.We’ve all seen at least one movie about flesh-eating zombies taking over (my...

May 19, 2011 (WLS) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is urging people to be ready for a zombie apocalypse, or any other possible disaster, by having emergency kits on hand. The emergency kit, the CDC says, should include several days' worth of water; food; medications; tools and supplies like a utility knife, duct tape and battery-powered radio; sanitation supplies such as towels, clothing, bedding, first aid supplies and important documents. The CDC also urged residents to have an emergency plan in place

America is on course to have its worst outbreak of measles in more than a decade. At least 89 cases have been reported in the last four months alone, compared to an annual average of around 50. Most of those are linked to a big outbreak in Europe, where more than 6,500 people across 33 countries have fallen victim to the disease. Travellers are catching the highly contagious illness while on vacation, then bringing it back to the U.S. when they return home. There have been particularly bad outbreaks in Utah, where nine children were infected after one spent time...

Health officials identified legionella bacteria in a whirlpool spa at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles during an investigation in February that began when people were sickened after attending a fundraiser. A number of people came down with a respiratory illness after DomainFest's Feb. 1-3 conference, which culminated in a fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles. Officials investigated to see if legionellosis was at fault; the more severe version of that illness is known as Legionnaires' disease, while a milder version is called Pontiac fever.

A company that serves meals to 2½ million schoolchildren daily in more than 500 districts nationwide, with multimillion-dollar contracts in both Washington and Chicago, has a history of marginal quality and food-safety scares amid concerns over the nutritional content of its school menus, according to school and company records. Chartwells-Thompson School Dining Services, a subsidiary of the Charlotte, N.C.-based Compass Group, owner of Burger King, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, is one of North America's largest school cafeteria operators — its contracts with the Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2009 totaling more than $289 million and a D.C. operation...

As Congress continues to battle over budget cuts, one House subcommittee took the first step toward defunding a slush fund of taxpayer money used for anti-obesity campaigns throughout the country. In a little-noticed hearing last Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee voted out legislation that would repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund that was created in the health care reform bill. The fund is a permanently authorized and appropriated subsidy for the Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) initiative (originally funded through the Recovery Act) that gives grants that directly financed anti-obesity campaigns and soda-tax efforts...

CDC: Abortions Declined in 2007, Black Women Have Highest Rate Washington, DC -- A new report the Centers for Disease Control issued today indicates abortions fell in 2007 to their second lowest level in the last 10 years. However, as has been the case for some time, the CDC report is incomplete as it leaves out some states. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/02/24/cdc-abortions-declined-in-2007-black-women-have-highest-rate/

Mobilizing the Globe Citizen Concepts announces the launch of PatriotAppTM, the world's first iPhone application that empowers citizens to assist government agencies in creating safer, cleaner, and more efficient communities via social networking and mobile technology. This app was founded on the belief that citizens can provide the most sophisticated and broad network of eyes and ears necessary to prevent terrorism, crime, environmental negligence, or other malicious behavior. Simply download, report (including pictures) and submit information to relevant government agencies, employers, or publish incident data to social network tools. Key Features: Integrated into Federal Agencies points of contacts FBI, EPA,...

For those who watched the Walking Dead finale Sunday night, is what happened to the CDC in the show realistic?

CDC: Two More U.S. Women Died From Using RU 486 Abortion Drug Washington, DC -- The Centers for Disease Control has reported that two more women in the United States than previously thought have died from using the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug. The news comes just days after the 10-year anniversary of the FDA's approval of the abortion drug. http://LifeNews.com/nat6743.html

Kristin Ruggiero of New Hampshire figured it would be a slam dunk. The gambit worked like a charm during the divorce hearing; now she would bring the case to criminal court. Her husband Jeffrey, an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, was an incorrigible batterer, at least that’s what she led to the judge to believe. That got him convicted of criminal threatening, and she won custody of their 7-year-old daughter. But Kristin Ruggiero wasn’t finished. One day, the woman bragged to her startled ex, “I took all your money, I took your daughter, and now I’m going to take...

What's the most embarrassing thing you could imagine doing with a can of condensed milk? How about having to ask a doctor to remove it from your rectum - because you stuck it there in a misguided stab at self-stimulation? Sounds like fiction, but it happened in real life. CBS News has the X-ray to prove it. And it's not the only shocking X-ray out there. From screwdrivers in the skull to children impaled on car antennas or with pins caught in their throats, doctors come across some pretty amazing images. This batch has been generously provided by Dr. Tim...

Watch the video HERE ...

WASHINGTON, July 8 (UPI) -- A survey seeking U.S. troops' views on the impact of ending a policy barring homosexuals from openly serving in the military is being sent, the Pentagon said. The more than 100-question survey was being sent to 200,000 active-duty troops and 200,000 members of reserve forces, CNN reported Thursday. Among other things, the survey asks about issues such as how morale or readiness may be affected if a commander is thought to be gay or lesbian, the need to maintain personal conduct standards and how a repeal may affect one's willingness to serve in the military....

Two groups of researchers studying a potential link between chronic-fatigue syndrome and a virus called XMRV have reached contradictory conclusions, according to people familiar with the findings. One group found a link, and the other didn't. Their reports were held from publication after being accepted by two science journals—a rare move that has caused a stir among scientists in the field. ------ Scientists at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, including NIH infectious-disease specialist Harvey Alter, recently finished research that came to a conclusion similar to that of the Science paper—that XMRV, or xenotropic murine...

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms that for the first time in more than 65 years, dengue fever has returned the continental United States, The New York Times is reporting this week: The upsurge is not unexpected. Experts say more than half the world's population will be at risk by 2085 because of greater urbanization, global travel and climate change. Over the past 30 years, a global outcry against using the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT, has led to the resurgence of the mosquito, a voracious consumer of human blood and carrier of infectious disease....

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Nine out of 10 Americans eat too much salt with most of them getting more than twice the recommended amount, according to a survey by U.S. government researchers. They said an estimated 77 percent of dietary sodium comes from processed foods and restaurant foods. "Sodium has become so pervasive in our food supply that it's difficult for the vast majority of Americans to stay within recommended limits," said Janelle Peralez Gunn, public health analyst with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who led the study of salt consumption. "Public health professionals, together with food manufacturers,...

More than two dozen cases of locally-acquired dengue fever have hit the resort town of Key West , Fla., in the past nine months, officials from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The nation's premier public health agency knowingly used flawed data to claim that high lead levels in the District's drinking water did not pose a health risk to the public, a congressional investigation has found. And, investigators determined, the agency has not publicized more thorough internal research showing that the problem harmed children across the city and continues to endanger thousands of D.C. residents. A House investigative subcommittee concludes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made "scientifically indefensible" claims in 2004 that high lead in the water was not causing noticeable harm to the health of city residents....

EVEN IF YOU TRIED, as I did, to avoid this year's health-care debate, it was impossible to ignore some of its startling statistics. Take, for instance, the annual medical costs linked to obesity, as reported in July by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: $147 billion, more than 7 percent of the nation's health-care tab of more than $2 trillion. About a month after the CDC report, the processed-food industry, with support from the American Heart and Diabetes associations, unveiled its Smart Choices Program, which approves special labels for healthy foods. Among the products stamped better choice were Froot...

We've been discussing doctors presuming to advise patients on gun safety. We saw a standard form used by an HMO and a form we can give back to make them think twice about dispensing advice they are not qualified to provide. It's not surprising that the medical establishment reflects an anti-gun bias. Such sentiment has been expressed at the top levels for some time now. A Reason article from 13 years ago shows how strong the leadership bias has been. Case in point, it discusses, among many other things, Mark Rosenberg, once director of the National Center for Injury Prevention...