Centers For Disease Control and Prevention Timeline - 1960s

1960s

• 1960 - The Tuberculosis Program moved from the Public Health Service to CDC.
• 1961 - CDC took over publication of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
• 1962 - CDC played a key role in one of the greatest triumphs of public health: the eradication of smallpox.
• 1963 - CDC tested the newly developed jet injector vaccine for smallpox.
• 1964 - The first Surgeon General's report linking smoking to lung cancer was released. It stated that "cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action."
• 1965 - New surveillance systems added to the original National Surveillance Program of 1952 included measles, shigellosis, tetanus, and trichinosis.
• 1966 - CDC announced a national measles eradication campaign at the American Public Health Association meeting.
• 1967 - The Foreign Quarantine Service, one of the oldest and most prestigious units of the Public Health Service, joined CDC.
• 1968 - CDC investigated an unidentified, highly infectious respiratory disease in Pontiac, Michigan, later identified as Legionellosis (also known by its two forms, Legionnaires' disease and Pontiac fever).
• 1969 - CDC constructed a "biocontainment lab" to protect scientists while they work with deadly and infectious pathogens.