u s centers for disease control and prevention

Maryland is among 26 states reporting high levels of flu, the miserable virus that is easily spread.

Millions of other older Americans at risk of shingles - a condition caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox - may soon have another option.

Howard County parks are retrofitting some older playgrounds with sun shades to reduce exposure to harmful UV rays.

The tobacco industry will run ads in newspapers and on TV stations around the country this weekend outlining the dangers of smoking as a "corrective" action under a court settlement.

Childhood lead poisoning cases in Maryland decreased last year to the lowest levels since 1994 when a new law  required it to be tracked, according to a state report released today.

The Carroll County Health Department hopes to prevent more cases of HPV and the cancer that can stem from it by providing more information about vaccines to parents of middle schoolers.

Some students thought a pumpkin spice air freshener was a full-on health hazard.

Puppies are transmitting potentially deadly Campylobacter bacteria infections via contaminated poop to the humans who handle them, with 55 people now sickened.

The Health Department recommends October as the prime time to get a flu shot in Carroll County

The rate of vaccination against the flu has stagnated in recent years, worrying authorities.

Carroll Community College evacuated, Hazmat called after chemical overheats in science lab

Dr. Nicole Absar will talk about the aging brain, Alzheimer's and related dementias at McDaniel College

Federal, state officials look for ways to help smokers kick the habit

Ring: “Stringent” doesn’t mean safer

With FluMist still under review, more students will be offered a shot instead of nasal spray

Fewer opioid pain killers are being precribed to patients in half of U.S. counties, including most in Maryland, in recent years, but the amount remains three

More than 24 million adults with arthritis are physically limited by the disease, a 20 percent increase in the number suffering limitations from 2002 to 2014, but exercise can reduce pain and prevent progression of the disease

As mosquito season nears, the heads of several Baltimore departments unveiled efforts Tuesday to help prevent mosquito-born illnesses, including Zika, which can lead to brain defects in babies.

In bucolic Lancaster County, Penn., the Amish people grow their own tobacco and smoke it in cigars, pipes or cigarettes, potentially exposing their families to a scourge of modern life — the health ailments caused by secondhand smoke exposure.

According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN, "There are some topics that seem to lend themselves appropriately to opinion pages.

Maryland is relatively well prepared for health care emergency — but not for possible Trump budget cuts

There have been five travel-related cases of the virus so far this year in Maryland, and other states continue to report cases, including Florida where someone acquired the virus directly from a mosquito bite

Pop quiz: Who is more likely to have a tattoo, a Democrat or a Republican? Someone who lives in a rural or an urban area? Men or women?

Tattoos have

Allowing pharmacists to dispense birth control pills is problematic

For more than a half century, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has checked on the health of thousands of Americans as a means of understanding the overall well-being of the nation and setting policy to improve it, and the agency hopes Baltimore County residents will agree to participate in the study when they come calling later this month.

Baltimore may have well known problems with substance abuse, asthma and obesity, but compare the health of the city to that of 499 other U.S. cities and things don't always look so bad

The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Thursday consumers should toss any containers of the I.M. Healthy brand soy nut butter because of

The warm weather has done nothing to temper the number of flu cases around the state

CDC: Annual new cases of HIV down, but reductions are uneven

Doctors participating in the state's Medicaid program will soon have to get prior authorization to write prescriptions for opioids, a move that is part of a growing effort by state health officials to curb runaway addiction that often begins with these painkillers

The opioid dilemma puts pressure on every physician to pause and reflect. Physician anesthesiologists are dedicated to providing pain relief in the safest manner possible, which includes prescribing and managing opioid therapy when medical conditions warrant. What we face now is too many tragic instances of patients emerging from pain treatment regimens only to see their lives destroyed later through addiction.

Many pregnant women may not have heard of cytomegalovirus, or CMV, a common virus that can lead to hearing loss and mental retardation or even death of their babies, but thanks to the widespread attention given to the similarly devastating virus Zika word may be spreading

Scientists from the University of Maryland School of Medicine have identified seven proteins within the deadly Zika virus that could be to blame for the birth defects linked to the pathogen.

Emergent BioSolutions, a Gaithersburg-based drug developer, has signed a follow-on contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worth up to $911 million over five years to supply more than 29 million doses of its BioThrax anthrax vaccine.

Decades of rising life expectancy in the United States came to a halt last year, with rates of every leading cause of death increasing but cancer, according to new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Addressing this crisis is long overdue. CARA is a first step. Adequate funding for CARA is the next step.

The years-long effort to build programs in developing parts of the world to combat HIV/AIDS got double boost this week at the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute of Human Virology, where officials announced $138 million in new funding and creation of a new Center for International Health, Education and Biosecurity.

It's the cycle of readmission that a cardiology nurse hopes to break with her concept of a cellphone app to track cardiology patients' diet, weight and exercise.

Many of the people most at risk for contracting HIV in Baltimore know nothing about a drug that is 92 percent effective in preventing the virus, research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found.

Wednesday was the first of four, free, walk-in flu shot clinics the Health Department will be hosting for children ages six months through 18 years of age, according to Deputy Health Officer Dr. Henry Taylor. They are intended to be supplemental to the Health Department's in-school vaccination programs for Carroll County Public Schools middle and elementary students, which also took place Wednesday, he said.

Maryland gets emergency preparedness money diverted for Zika

Everyone knows that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Fewer know October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Emergency rooms are struggling to save gunshot victims arriving in worse shape than ever before, with more bullet wounds, and increasingly shot in the head.

The state's first flu case of the season has been reported in the Washington suburbs, prompting state health officials to urge people to get vaccinated. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said an adult was diagnosed with the respiratory disease, but not hospitalized. They did not provide other details.

Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers working with scientists in Colombia have discovered what they believe is the strongest evidence yet that the Zika virus causes neurological problems in adults. Much of the medical concern about the mosquito-borne Zika has been directed at pregnant women because the virus can cause microcephaly – brain damage and a abnormally small head – in babies. The new research shows the health fallout from the disease may be more widespread than once thought.

Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, killed more than 90,000 Americans in 2015, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making it our nation's sixth-leading cause of death. The National Institute of Aging, however, notes that mortality figures from the disease may actually be underreported because of some people never receive a diagnosis or the primary cause of death is listed as a dementia-related condition such as aspiration pneumonia, even though Alzheimer's

The $1.1 billion allocated by Congress last week to target Zika will mean more money for states and localities to control and monitor for the mosquito-borne virus and for researchers to development of vaccines and diagnostic tests

Martin and McDaniel students have been leading that charge in Carroll County for years, with the student-led Walk to End Alzheimer's disease on, which returns on Oct. 8 for the eighth year running, and the Alzheimer's Symposium, to be held Oct. 12 and in its fourth year.

Fall has arrived — and with it the flu season and those persistent reminders from school, work and elsewhere to get vaccinated. But getting children inoculated this year will be a bit more painful. The FluMist nasal spray version of the vaccine popular with needle-adverse kids, is no longer available.

Stacey Stirmer and her husband, Lloyd, who have an adult son with autism and epilepsy, recently started a nonprofit charitable foundation in May named Voices for Autism.