Center for Disease Control

Sarah Wenson
T/TH 9:30
Dr. Allegra Blake
4/20/2012

Abstract
The Center for Disease Control is a United States public agency that works to protect health and safety. They do this by researching diseases and provide information about them to help Americans stay healthy. The Center for Disease control has workers who are called disease detectives. These are the people that go to different countries to do research on diseases and bring the information back to America to make sure we are aware and educated about them. Disease detectives and the Center for Disease Control, work together to stop thousands of diseases, they stick to 5 strategic plans to do so. They have been following the same plan since the day that they opened, 66 years ago. The three main diseases that the Center for Disease Control are trying to stop the spread of today are influenza, sexually transmitted diseases, and foodborne illnesses.

Sarah Wenson
T/TH 9:30
Dr. Allegra Blake
4/20/2012
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Introduction
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more commonly known as the CDC, is a United States federal agency that works to protect public health and safety. They do this by researching diseases and providing information about them to broaden Americans health decisions. The CDC is the United States prime public health institute. At the CDC, there are workers who are called “disease detectives” and their main job is to research diseases and provide feedback to the CDC about them, to inform Americans. Disease Detectives research all sorts of diseases, their main projects today are; the common flu, sexually transmitted diseases, and foodborne illnesses.
History
The CDC opened their first research center on July 1st of 1946 in Atlanta, Georgia. This CDC opened up because malaria was such a big issues so there needed to be research done on how to stop it. After months of research, the CDC came up with a goal to kill off all of the mosquitos,

Cited: "CDC News, Articles and Information." CDC News and Articles. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. <http://www.naturalnews.com/CDC.html>.This was a very helpful source. This website is a website full of news articles about the Center for Disease Control. It was very easy to navigate and was full of loads of information. This was an objective website and a secondary source. "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web. 3 Apr. 2012. <http://www.cdc.gov/>. This is The Center for Disease Controls main website. This is where I got most of my information. It was extremely helpful for me because there was so much information in it. This is a secondary source. The author is objective and full of knowledge. Etheridge, Elizabeth W. Sentinel for Health: A History of the Centers for Disease Control. Berkeley: University of California, 1992. Print. This book was about the history of the Center for Disease Control and how it came about. It went through and talked about all of the early struggles that America was going through and how CDC helped fix it. This source was somewhat helpful, and a secondary source. The source is slightly biased. McKenna, Maryn. Beating Back the Devil: On the Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service. New York: Free, 2004. Print. Beating Back the Devil was a book about the disease detectives at the CDC. I found this book very interesting and it was extremely informative. The book is a secondary source and was very objective. Shannon, Curt. "Meet Benjamin Silk, CDC Disease Detective." CDC Works for You 24/7 (2011). Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 17 Nov. 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. This Article is an autobiography on a man named Benjamin Silk, who is a disease detective for The Center for Disease Control. This is a primary source and was very helpful to me. He gave good explanations of what he did throughout his work. This article is slightly biased. "Special Pathogens Branch." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 19 May 2011. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. <http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/disinfo.htm>.This article is about the bio safety of level four diseases. This was a very interesting article filled with a lot of information. This article was somewhat helpful to me because it only went into detail of one branch of the disease detectives. This was a secondary source and was somewhat biased. "Ten Great Public Health Achievements -- United States, 1900-1999." (1999). MMWR. Web. 3 Apr. 2012. This source was an article found on the web. It talks about the top 10 achievements that the Center for Disease Control has accomplished. This article was very helpful; it had a lot of good information. This is a secondary source. The way that this article was written was very objective. Trethan, Phaedra. "The Centers for Disease Control." About.com US Government Info. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. <http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/healthcare/a/aboutcdc.htm>.This article was found on About.com. The article was full of information that I had not found in my recent research. This is a secondary source. The author was somewhat biased.