Centers for Disease Control. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1946, is the world's premier public health institution. It evolved from a
World War II unit of the U.S. Public Health Service—Malaria Control in War Areas—which was charged with keeping the
South, where many troops were trained,
malaria free. Originally called the Communicable Disease Center, its purpose was to control communicable
diseases throughout the United States. Several name changes reflected its expanding mission, but the acronym CDC continued.
Dr. Joseph W. Mountin, founder of the CDC, envisioned an institution that would assist state health departments in disease control through laboratory work and epidemiology. The “disease detectives” of its Epidemic Intelligence Service, organized in 1951, quickly achieved fame. This unit, conceived by Dr. Alexander Langmuir, introduced the concept of disease surveillance, first used effectively against
poliomyelitis and
influenza in the 1950s. Routine disease surveillance would become the cornerstone of
public‐health practice.
The CDC played a vital role in the global elimination of
smallpox and discovered the Legionnaires' disease bacterium, the hantavirus (agent of a serious respiratory disease outbreak in the American
Southwest), and the causes of toxic shock syndrome and Lassa and Ebola fevers. In 1981, the CDC first identified a new fatal disease, subsequently named AIDS (
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Among its successes in environmental health were the removal of lead from gasoline and the development of a serum test for dioxin, used to detect exposure to Agent Orange among
Vietnam War veterans. The CDC's massive swine flu inoculation campaign of 1976 elicited bitter criticism when the expected epidemic never materialized and serious side effects from the vaccine came to light. In the 1980s, the CDC added accidents, violence, and lifestyle issues to its concerns. Disease prevention, a requisite to achieving the goal of a healthy people in a healthy world, became the CDC's emphasis in the 1990s.
See also
Environmentalism;
Medicine: Since 1945.
Bibliography
Elizabeth W. Etheridge , Sentinel for Health: A History of the Centers for Disease Control, 1992.
Elizabeth W. Etheridge
