Tuesday, April 19, 2005
What's Going On At The CDC?
The Centers for Disease control appear to be internally conflicted over the health consequences of obesity:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated today that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths.
and this:
CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight, the CDC is not going to use the brand-new figure of 25,814 in its public awareness campaigns and is not going to scale back its fight against obesity.
Why is it so difficult to decide whether being overweight is unhealthy? Why such erratic swings in the numbers? It's all very strange. If I were a cynical man I would think there was some kind of bureaucratic power struggle going on over funding at the CDC.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated today that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths.
and this:
CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight, the CDC is not going to use the brand-new figure of 25,814 in its public awareness campaigns and is not going to scale back its fight against obesity.
Why is it so difficult to decide whether being overweight is unhealthy? Why such erratic swings in the numbers? It's all very strange. If I were a cynical man I would think there was some kind of bureaucratic power struggle going on over funding at the CDC.
# posted by Joe Florida @ 3:37 PM 
