The Communicable Disease Center (CDC) open its offices in Atlanta as part of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) in 1946, with a mission to work with state and local health officials to fight against malaria (CDC, 2002). In 1947 it bought the land on which its headquarters stand today. In 1951, the Epidemic Intelligence Service was established to respond to a wide range of health emergencies worldwide. The same year, the CDC began its national disease surveillance system. 1955 saw the establishment of its Polio Surveillance Unit and assumed control for this disease from the PHS. 1961 saw the fist issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), publishing important data on deaths and certain diseases from every state every week. AIDS was first reported in MMWR in 1981.
In 1970, the Communicable Disease Center was renamed the Center for Disease Control to reflect its broader mission in disease prevention (CDC, 2002). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) became part of the CDC in 1973. The CDC was called on to investigate the outbreak of LegionnaireÆs disease in Philadelphia in 1976, and in 1977, saw the last case of endemic smallpox in Somalia. The CDC opened an expanded maximum-containment laboratory in 1978 to handle dangerous viruses. The last case of wild polio virus in the United States was reported by the CDC in 1979.
In 1980 the agency was again renamed, to the Centers for Disease Control to reflect a change in its organizational structure (CDC, 2002). The CDC created a Violence Epidemiology Branch in 1983 to address child abuse, homicide, and suicide using public health prevention strategies. The Office of Smoking and Health became part of the CDC in 1986. In 1987, the CDC reported the association between Reyes syndrome and aspirin, and in 1989 established the Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion to target chronic diseases such as heart disease,...