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mpendergrast | June 21, 2010Mark Pendergrast writes: To kick off this book club discussion of Inside the Outbreaks, I thought I would explain briefly how I came to write the book and then suggest some possible topics for discussion.
The origin of the book goes back to an email I got in 2004 from my old high school and college friend, Andy Vernon, who wrote that I should consider writing the history of the EIS. I emailed back to say that I was honored, but what was the EIS? I had never heard of it. I knew Andy worked on tuberculosis at the CDC, but I didn't know that he had been a state-based EIS officer from 1978…
tsmith | April 27, 2010Student guest post by Desiré Christensen
Colorectal cancer (aka colon cancer) includes cancers of the colon, rectum, and appendix. Colorectal cancer is more common in developed countries (e.g. United States and Japan) compared to developing countries in Africa and Asia. Each year in the United States, there are around 150,000 cases of colorectal cancer diagnosed and about 50,000 people die from this cancer. Risk factors for colorectal cancer include lifestyle factors (e.g. habitual alcohol use; high-fat, low-fiber diet; obesity; sedentary lifestyle; smoking), family history of intestinal…