Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

John Wiley Price is Right -- This Time -- to Support Health Director on Mosquito Spraying

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price is exactly right to support Zachary Thompson, the county's embattled health director responsible for fighting West Nile disease. Zachary Thompson is exactly right to worry about the role of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a fede ... More >>

Here Are All The Reasons Why Texas Teenagers Can't Seem to Stop Getting Pregnant

Congratulations, Texas! After a lot of hard work and many long nights, we're number one in the nation for repeat teen births. According to the Centers for Disease Control, which released a new report on April 2, in 2010, 22 percent of Texas teenagers aged 15-19 who gave birth were delivering their ... More >>

Raw Milk Bill Hung Up By Fuddy Duddies at the Texas Medical Association

Dig raw milk? Right now to indulge unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk from cows and goats that are raised on pasture-based farms (you know, the way we all used to do it) individuals have to drive out to the farm and purchase it directly. That may be a fun weekend drive if you've got a convertible and ... More >>

State Rep. Bill Zedler Wants to Shut Down Those Grody LGBT Centers at Texas Colleges

The LGBT Resource Center at Texas A&M University, like its cousins at the University of Texas and the University of Houston, is an innocuous arm of school bureaucracy that offers an array of resources to gay and transgendered students. There is a guest speaker program, a lending library, networking ... More >>

Not So Fast: Morning News Op-Ed Calls for More Aerial Mosquito Spraying, but There Are Better Ways to Fight West Nile

On the op-ed page of The Dallas Morning News this morning, two local epidemiologists with national/international reputations weigh in for more aerial spraying to combat West Nile disease. Robert Haley, the Gulf War Syndrome expert, and James Luby, an expert on St. Louis encephalitis at UT Southweste ... More >>

CDC Offers Weak Numbers on West Nile Spraying

Before we blanket ourselves with pesticides, we should clear some things up.

Dallas County's Aerial Spraying for West Nile not as Deadly to Mosquitoes as First Claimed

Don't scramble the county air force just yet. We need to do some serious reading and talking before the Dallas County does a repeat of last year's aerial spraying for West Nile disease. I have a copy of the final Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on last year's spraying. Sorry, can' ... More >>

The American Lung Association Gives Texas an 'F', Calls it the "Tobacco Industry's Playground"

Smoking rates in the U.S. are plummeting. According to the CDC, there were three million fewer smokers in 2010 than in 2005. The factors contributing to this decline are are fairly obvious: improved educational efforts; cessation programs; higher cigarette taxes; tighter state and local anti-smoking ... More >>

Texas House Rep Allen Fletcher Files Bill To Tackle Non-Existent Problem of Sex-Selective Abortion

With the shiny new session of the Texas Legislature a mere six days away, your lawmakers are gearing up to debate some important issues, like handsy TSA agents and whether we should drug-test people who have the audacity to file for emergency welfare relief. But, as ever, some legislators are most ... More >>

Aerial Spraying Against West Nile Needs Debate

We're getting only half the story about the risks and dangers of pesticides.

Congratulations, Texas, You Are 12th in Fat-Assedness

New data on obesity is out, and according to some really smart people, we're all still fat. Unfortunately, it's hard to say if the problem is getting better or worse because the CDC established a new method for analyzing the data, and thus a new baseline, making comparisons with previous years meani ... More >>

Texas is Fat, and Getting Fatter, Says the CDC

It's an easy thing for a state to rationalize. Every year, the percentage of Texas residents who are technically obese inches up slightly. It's just by a percentage point or so, so maybe it's a rounding error or a gravitational anomaly that affects every Texans' scale. Besides, who doesn't overindul ... More >>

Associated Press Says Fracking Debate Based on Bad Science. What Science?

The Associated Press has news for the people who live above the shale formations experts say have transformed America's energy terrain: Critics of the gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing are as guilty of hyperbole, or downright dishonesty, as the industry's most ardent defenders. T ... More >>

Great, Now Dallas Is One Of The Least Fit Cities In The Nation

In addition to being smutty and un-hip, the DFW area is now ranking way down at number 47 on the American College of Sports Medicine's Fitness Index. And the bad news is that unlike some of the other lists we've been bitching about lately (looking at you, perv index) this one is backed up with actu ... More >>

Beef Products Inc. Wants Us to Eat Pink Slime for the Jobs. Sorry, But We'll Pass.

Processed-meat fever came to a head over the weekend. It started with a full-page ad, which appeared on Friday in the Wall Street Journal (and is on display below), paid for by Beef Product Inc. The company branded itself a paragon of food safety and cited "pink slime" libel as a threat to 3000 jobs ... More >>

Bryan Rep. Bill Flores Wants To Revive Abstinence-Only Education Funding

All this arguing we're doing about contraception is getting a little tiresome, isn't it? Sure, we get to use the word "sluts" repeatedly in a national conversation, and we've watched several elderly male politicians state their understanding of how birth control works, explanations which often deser ... More >>

Dallas is America's 25th Fattest City, Houston is the Fattest, and Austin? Screw Austin.

Men's Fitness has taken measure of our nation and, once again, growing girth is the trend. In the March issue, which is on newsstands but not online, the magazine uses fitness industry and CDC stats to compile a list of America's 25 fattest cities. Houston is the fattest, which the magazine partia ... More >>

We Found Someone to Try Meatless Monday. Poor Someone.

FlickrSee that green thing over there? You're supposed to eat it, apparently.​You may have heard of this whole Meatless Monday thing. It's a simple idea: to abstain from eating meat for just one day a week. It's not a radically new concept; the term was coined during WWI as a slogan (along wit ... More >>

Dallas is One Big Coronary Waiting to Happen

FlickrPlease don't try to eat your monitor.​Just a head's up: The editors of Prevention Magazine think you're fat. In an article published on Yahoo, both Lubbock and Dallas landed among the top eight most artery-clogging cities in America, based on data culled from the Centers for Disease Co ... More >>

Contagion: Time for Widespread Panic

Steven Soderbergh turns the star-studded Hollywood disaster flick on its head.

Tips for Having a Safe, Sterile July 4th Picnic...Even Though You Shouldn't

Salmonella hates America. Fight back! Eat indoors!​About 48 million Americans get food-borne illness per year, and of that heaving-and-hurling 48 million, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die, says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means roughly one in six Americans w ... More >>

Goya Foods Recalls Frozen Mamey Packages Linked to Salmonella Typhi

​Secaucus, New Jersey-based Goya Foods Inc., the dominant Latin American foods company, has recalled all its 14-ounce packages of frozen mamey pulp. The product is used to make milkshakes and smoothies. The packages were distributed in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Mexico, ... More >>

Killer Salsa: Why is the CDC Picking on Our Favorite Dips?

Ohmigod, that salsa killed Kenny!​The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week did its best to dampen summer fun by linking salsa to food poisoning. According to the much-quoted press release, one out of every 25 cases of foodborne illnesses picked up at restaurants originates ... More >>

Do Hot-Blooded Mexicans Not Need Winter Coats?

Mexican Men Would Love to Take Out Some Chinese

Why Blame The Food?

​I think it was last week when I came across an AP story detailing the efforts of the San Antonio Restaurant Association to encourage healthier cooking at the city's Tex-Mex and Mexican eateries. Seems the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed San Antonio behind only Detroit, Memphis a ... More >>

Smokey dare: Maybe it's time to regulate marijuana like cigarettes

Turns Out, All It Takes to Kill Dallas's Convention Business Is a Little Swine Flu Scare

Something called the Food Marketing Institute was scheduled to hold two events in Dallas beginning May 4: a "Future Connect leadership development conference" on May 4-6, followed by a "MARKETECHNICS® technology event" May 5-8. According to Tradeshow Week, the events were to take place at the Hyatt ... More >>

Chewing the Fat: CDC Says Shake the Salt

Those fun-loving sorts over at the CDC have one more thing you need to stop eating. A report released last month advises Americans to--surprise!--consume less salt. Americans eat 3,436mg of salt daily, compared to the CDC's recommendation of 2300mg. In response, Divine Caroline brings some timely ... More >>

Chewing the Fat: Measuring Every Chug

Gotta wonder if the folks at the Centers for Disease Control will come out with a list of top party schools now. A new study released by the organization says the typical American binge drinker is a white male, aged 18-34. No kidding. The news comes courtesy of Drugs.com. They note that the CDC ... More >>

Gangsta Lean

Youth Risk Survey Has Some Good News -- And, For Latinos, Some Bad News

Just Put Down the Tomato and Back Away Slowly -- and Panic! Or Don't.

DISD Now $316,000 Lighter

In the Inner City, An Alternative to Abortion

Shoot Up Your Kid

The Forbes 35 (Drunkest)

Med Head

Urban Bistro’s menu is studded with imaginative vignettes

Sick, or Sick in the Head?

The Plague

Bizarre fibers. Black sweat. Bugs under the skin. Welcome to the controversial world of Morgellons disease.

Clean Sweep

Take Back Your Saturday Morning at ZaSpa

Knocking Noggin

What is eggnog?

Living La Vida SIDA

After his younger brother died of AIDS, Joseluis Partida dedicated his life to warning people about the disease. But the politics of being gay and Hispanic made it tougher than he ever imagined.

Cloudy Issue

Bill proposes to ban smoking in Texas restaurants

Planet Mold

The latest environmental hazard in Dallas and the country is displacing homeowners, covering walls and pets, and making lawyers even richer. Welcome to the weird world of "black mold."

Hash Over

Beer bust; Buck banger

Unacceptable Risk

Texas health officials say that mandatory childhood vaccinations against hepatitis B will prevent the spread of life-threatening illness. But which is riskier--the disease or the vaccine?

Gimme gimme

City Hall has $22 million in federal funds to fix your neighborhood. Instead, it's spending the money on barrels of pork.

Let 'em eat loin

1998 was a year of lusty carnivores, raw fish, and orgiastic indulgence

Death on tap

Cryptosporidium kills AIDS victims in Dallas. Who will the pathogen claim next?