What Is Radiation? How Can Exposure Occur? What Happens When People Are Exposed to Radiation? In the event of a radiation emergency, such as a nuclear power plant accident or the explosion of a dirty bomb, you may be asked to stay home and take shelter rather than try to evacuate. This action is called “sheltering in place.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has prepared this fact sheet to help people understand how public health officials would monitor people following a radiological incident, and how this monitoring could be used to protect people’s health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has prepared this fact sheet to help you understand the possible health effects to your fetus from exposure to radiation.

The JIC Never Sleeps - by Clarice Conley

As a result of the incident with the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, highly sensitive radiation monitors operated by EPA and others are detecting very low levels of radioactive material in the air in the United States. These levels were expected and consistent with estimated releases from the damaged nuclear reactors and are far below levels of public health concern.

This fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gives you some basic information about Radiation and Potassium Iodide (KI). It explains what you should think about before you or a family member takes KI.

Prussian blue can remove certain radioactive materials from people’s bodies, but must be taken under the guidance of a doctor.

Radiation sickness, known as acute radiation syndrome (ARS), is a serious illness that occurs when the entire body (or most of it) receives a high dose of radiation, usually over a short period of time. Many survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs in the 1940s and many of the firefighters who first responded after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident in 1986 became ill with ARS.

Answers to questions like: What is Radiation?, How Can Exposure Occur?, What Happens When People Are Exposed to Radiation?, What Types of Terrorist Events Might Involve Radiation?, and more.

The Situation Awareness Section (SA) mission is to support CDC emergency response operations through strengthening public health information sharing between CDC, Federal, State, and local entities to monitor, collect, analyze, and develop critical information to support response actions and produce data, information, and geospatial information products supporting a User Definable Operating Picture (UDOP).

This fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gives you some basic information about Radiation and Potassium Iodide (KI). It explains what you should think about before you or a family member takes KI.

Haiti Cholera Response: Stories from the Field, Part 3 - by Molly McCollom

CDC/ATSDR Guidance on the Interpretation and Use of Blood Laboratory Analyses for Volatile Organic Compounds

Volatile Organic Compounds and Your Health Some people in the Gulf have had their blood tested for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) because they were worried about exposure to chemicals after the Gulf oil spill. CDC and ATSDR are working with Gulf residents and their doctors to help them understand what the results might mean

With the continuing resurgence of pertussis, health care professionals will likely see more patients with suspected pertussis. Proper testing criteria, timing of testing, specimen collection techniques, protocols for avoiding specimen contamination, and appropriate interpretation of test results are all necessary to ensure that Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) reliably informs patient diagnosis.

Battling Disease Outbreaks in the Big Apple - by Scott Harper

Haiti Cholera Response: Stories from the Field, Part 2 - by Araceli Rey

The National Public Health Radio Network (NPHRN) is a collaborative initiative between CDC's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR) and the Division of Emergency Operations (DEO).

As influenza activity increases in the United States, clinicians are urged to consult CDC guidance on the use of influenza antiviral agents and rapid influenza diagnostic tests this season. Updated recommendations on the use of antiviral medications will be published in an upcoming Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), but an interim version of the recommendations is currently available on CDC's website at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/antivirals/index.htm.

Haiti Cholera Response: Stories from the Field. Part 1 - by Emily McCormick