Tagged: Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

On June 17, 2009, an 11-year-old boy returned home from the U.K., which was experiencing a large number of mumps cases at the time. He then went to a summer camp for Orthodox Jews in upstate New York.

This turned out to be the spark that led to an outbreak of mumps among Orthodox Jewish communities in and around New York City. Ultimately, more than 3,500 people got sick.

Two weeks after Matthew Spencer got a spinal injection for his chronic back pain, he felt "not quite right." Nothing too specific: worsening headache, nausea.

Then he saw a TV report on a recall of contaminated steroid medication used for back pain.

"I thought, well, I don't know if I had that medicine or not, but maybe I'd better go check it out," Spencer says.

State health officials are concerned about a growing pertussis epidemic in Colorado. To date, 1,026 cases of pertussis (commonly referred to as whooping cough) have been confirmed statewide.