Nearly a third of workers in the U.S. aren't getting enough sleep, according to a new government report.

Overall, 30 percent of employed U.S. adults reported getting less than six hours of sleep a night, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its report. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that healthy adults get seven to nine hours of sleep.

People who usually work the night shift — especially those in transportation, warehousing, health care and social assistance industries — were more likely than day-shift workers to report not getting enough sleep. Forty-four percent of the night shift workers participating in the survey said they got less than six hours of sleep, compared with 29 percent of workers with day shifts.

"Insufficient sleep can have serious and sometimes fatal consequences for fatigued workers and others around them," the CDC wrote. An estimated 20 percent of vehicle crashes are linked to drowsy driving.

Besides poor job performance, too little sleep has been linked with obesity and cardiovascular disease, the report noted.

Those with night jobs face a particular challenge in getting enough sleep. "Attempts to sleep during daylight hours, when melatonin levels decline and body temperature rises, usually result in shorter sleep episodes and more wakefulness," the report said.

Companies should implement ways to improve workers' chances for enough sleep, the report said. For example, training programs on sleep and working hours can be tailored for managers and employees, and work shifts can be designed in ways to improve sleep opportunities.

The reports of sleep-deprived workers varied by industry, with manufacturing faring among the worst. The CDC said 34.1 percent of manufacturing workers reported not getting enough sleep.

When the results were broken down by age group, the findings showed people in the middle of their working years were most likely to report less than six hours of sleep a night: about 32 percent of people between the ages of 30 and 64, compared with 26.5 percent of those ages 18-29, and 21.7 percent of those 65 and older.

There were also differences among races. Black workers (38.9 percent), and Asian workers (33.2 percent) were significantly more likely to report short sleeps than white workers (28.6 percent) or Hispanic workers (28.8 percent), the report said.

People who were widowed, divorced, or separated were significantly more likely to report sleeping than six hours (36.4 percent) than with workers who were married (29.4 percent) or had never been married (28.2 percent).

The results are based on the data gathered during 2009 and 2010 in the National Health Interview Survey, for which a nationally representative sample of more than 15,000 adults were interviewed in their homes. The report was limited in that the data relied on people's own reports of how much sleep they get.

• 7 Tips to Sleep Soundly Tonight
• Top 10 Spooky Sleep Disorders
• The Best Apps for Your Health, Part 2: Sleep Trackers

Even though Americans are marrying older, the divorce rate has remained high, a new government report shows.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers found that the median age for women getting hitched for the first time has risen to almost 26 and to over 28 for men.

Among women there was just a 52 percent chance that a first marriage would survive for 20 years, according to the report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. Men appeared to be slightly more successful, with a 56 percent chance of a first marriage surviving for two decades.

The older marriage age doesn’t mean that people aren’t getting into relationships – they’re just choosing to live together instead.  “There’s been a real rise in the prevalence of cohabitation,” said the report’s lead author, Casey E. Copen, a demographer with the National Survey of Family Growth at the National Center for Health Statistics.

The percentage of women living with a partner (as opposed to marrying him) has nearly quadrupled from 3 percent in 1982 to 11 percent in the newest survey. The earlier surveys included data only from women so the researchers couldn’t look at whether there had been a change in the rate at which men were choosing to live together rather than to marry.  

The new report includes information from 22,682 Americans between the ages of 15 and 44 who were interviewed in their homes between 2006 and 2010. The researchers also had data from six earlier surveys dating back to 1973 to compare with the new information.

One intriguing finding from the study is that more highly educated people wedded later -- and had longer lasting marriages. Copen and her colleagues found that 78 percent of women with at least a bachelor’s degree had made it to their 20^th anniversary as compared to 41 percent of women with only a high school diploma. Similarly, 65 percent of college educated men saw a 20^th anniversary as compared to 47 percent of the men who hadn’t gone beyond high school.

That falls in line with other new research showing that blue collar folks are less likely to get married than their white collar counterparts, Copen said. “Research has shown that there’s a socioeconomic divide between those who marry and those who don’t,” she added. “People may be more likely to transition to marriage when they feel more economically stable.”

The researchers also found that the lack of a marriage certificate isn’t keeping people from having babies. “A lot of women and men have children while cohabitating,” Copen said.

So, did the new report shed any light on what it takes to stay married? Maybe - depending on how you interpret the results.

For one thing, if you want to stay hitched, you probably shouldn’t choose someone who’s gotten divorced. Looking only at first marriages, just 38 percent of women who chose to wed a divorced man were still married by their 20^th anniversary, as compared to 54 percent of those who wed a man who’d never been married.

Another possible predictor of a shortened wedded bliss: marrying someone who already has kids. Looking only at women in a first marriage, just 37 percent of those marrying a man with kids made it to their platinum anniversary as compared to 54 percent of those who wed a man with no children.

Still, children may indeed be the glue that keeps people together – if they’re conceived and born after the couple marries.

Among women who remained childless just 50 percent reached their platinum anniversary as compared to 77 percent of those who bore children at least 8 months after getting married.

In the end, the report may be telling us something good about the way Americans view marriage.  

Although women are taking longer to decide to get hitched, they are still doing it at about the same rate as they were back in 1995.

Sweetened cereals likely contribute to the extra sugars American kids consume at home, researchers say.

America’s intake of sugary foods and drinks has dropped in recent years, but U.S. kids are still consuming too much, government researchers say.

Contrary to popular belief, most of that sweet fare is coming from home, not from school or other settings, the researchers reported in a new study released by the National Center for Health Statistics.

For parents, that means that it’s even more important to monitor added sugars in kids’ diets, even those that aren’t so obvious.

“Added sugars are in sugar sweetened cereals, muffins -- even pasta sauce,” said Cynthia Ogden, the study’s co-author and an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “You can see it if you read the food labels.”

The report, which tracked consumption of added sugars by children and teens from 2005 to 2008, offered other unexpected findings, said Ogden.

Researchers also found that family income made no difference in children’s sugary diets.

“We found that all kids are eating a lot of added sugars,” she said.

Most of those sugars came from foods rather than beverages, another surprise, Ogden said.

Overall, about 16 percent of the calories in the average American child’s diet came from “added sugars” -- sweeteners used in the making of foods such as breads, cakes, soft drinks, jams, chocolates and ice cream.

What’s scary is that the sweets count didn’t include naturally occurring sugars in items such as fruit and fruit juice.

The good news is that in teens, at least, consumption of added sugars appears to have declined a bit, from 22 percent to 17 percent of total calories, Ogden said. 

Still, that’s higher than federal dietary guidelines, which recommend that the total intake of discretionary calories, including added sugars and solid fats, be limited to 5 percent to 15 percent of daily caloric intake.

Dr. Wendy Slusser, a weight control expert, suspects that some of the new study’s findings might be explained by successful campaigns to get sugary drinks out of schools.

 "Other studies have shown that a good proportion of added sugars are being consumed outside the home,” said Slusser, an associate clinical professor of medicine at the Mattel Children’s Hospital at the University of California, Los Angeles and medical director for the UCLA Fit for Healthy Weight Program at Mattel. “So we’re probably seeing a drop in consumption outside the home.”

That means the next focus for intervention may be helping parents to choose healthier options for their kids to eat at home, Slusser said.

“This is an opportunity for families,” Slusser said. “There are estimates now that we could shift children’s weights back to 1970s levels if we could just take 350 calories out of a kid’s diet each day.”

One place to look is beverages, Slusser said. Some of the biggest culprits are 10 percent fruit juice drinks and sports drinks.

“Parents think they’re doing what they’re supposed to when they give their kids sports drinks on a hot day,” she said. “If you substitute water for sugary drinks, that’s a huge step in the right direction.”

Another place to lower sugar levels is in breakfast cereals, Slusser said. “You might want to give them regular Cheerios instead of Honey Nut Cheerios,” she suggested.

Avoiding processed foods is another way to skip the added sugars, noted Ogden. Choosing fresh foods and carefully reading labels of packaged goods can help.

The best way to cut down on added sugars in a kid’s diet is to make healthy eating part of the family routine, Slusser said. Make sure to leave time for a good breakfast in the morning and plan ahead for healthy snacks after school and nutritious dinners at night.

“Once there’s a routine, parents can integrate healthier foods into their children’s diets,” she notes. “When you’re always eating on the fly, you end up eating too many processed foods.”

Related:

Gluten-free diet may be waste of money for some, new research suggests

Kids don't get enough sleep (and neither did their grandparents)

High levels of arsenic found in fruit juice

By Christopher Wanjek
Live Science

The rate of food-poisoning outbreaks caused by unpasteurized, or raw, milk and dairy products is 150 times greater than outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk, according to new research.

The studies were published last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

But alas, that number might be closer to 151 by now. A new outbreak emanating from bad raw milk in Pennsylvania, coincidentally coinciding with the release of this CDC report, so far has sickened nearly 100 people in four states.

It's not as if pasteurized milk is perfectly safe. There were 48 disease outbreaks from contaminated pasteurized milk and cheese resulting in thousands of illnesses and one death between 1993 and 2006, the period analyzed by the CDC. 

 Top 10 Mysterious Diseases 

The sale of raw milk, however, has led to 73 disease outbreaks, two deaths, and many permanent disabilities during the same period — alarming numbers considering that raw milk constitutes less than 1 percent of all dairy sales. States where raw milk sales are legal had twice as many outbreaks, the study found.

Outbreaks stem from many kinds of bacteria, such as Campylobacter, Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria.

These outbreaks may be on the rise, too, the CDC says, given the growing popularity of raw milk products. In the 20 U.S. states that ban raw milk sales, willing consumers can circumvent the laws by forming cow-sharing cooperatives or by buying raw milk under the guise of pet food.

Raw facts
Raw milk comes straight from the dairy animal's teat to you with little processing, the way nature sort of intended this otherwise rare interspecies-sharing of lactating fluid. Humans throughout history, however, rarely guzzled milk by the glassful the way we do today. Milk usually was soured into yogurt, curdled into cheese, or made into whey or other products that could keep longer without refrigeration.

Those who did drink raw milk, an important source of protein and other nutrients, usually lived on a farm with cows or other dairy animals and benefited from a fresh product.

As milk drinking became more popular in the 20th century, governments began instituting the practice of pasteurization, which flash-boils the milk to kill most of the bacteria, good and bad. This made milk safe for consumption in cities and other regions far from a dairy farm.

But forced pasteurization in the United States in the early 20th century created a faction that has grown stronger in recent years. Proponents of raw milk argue that it is healthier, tastier and safer than conventional milk if produced correctly.

Health benefits debatable
The "healthier" argument remains unproven. Pasteurization only slightly reduces the nutritional value of milk. The reduction in vitamins B12 and E and, actually, an increase in vitamin A in pasteurized milk are of little concern because the levels are inherently so low and easily can be obtained in other foods, according to a systematic review of 40 studies published in 2011 in the Journal of Food Safety. Pasteurization reduces vitamin B2, or riboflavin; yet so too does sunlight, and raw milk sold in glass bottles loses some of its riboflavin this way.

Conversely, raw milk usually doesn't contain vitamin D, which is added to conventional milk.  The main source of this vitamin is sunlight, but many people in northern climates do not get enough sun during the winter months.  Without a supplement, children in particular would be at risk for poor bone development.

Infographic: The Power of Vitamin D

Whether raw milk can boost the immune system also is debated. A study published in 2011 in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology demonstrated that drinking raw milk was associated with lower asthma rates among farm children in rural Germany and Switzerland. Yet the effect might be due to farm living more than the milk, since research has shown that living on farms (and having pets) can stimulate kids' immune systems.

Ban it or improve it?
Taste is another thing, though. Raw milk and cheeses do have a distinctive taste, which raw-milk advocates say they are denied as a result of perverse laws that sacrifice personal liberties in the name of public health.

That is, there is no call to ban raw vegetables or seafood. In 2011, 50 people died from contaminated bean sprouts from Germany and 29 people died from contaminated cantaloupes from California, according to CDC data. Pasteurized cheese contaminated with listeria killed 52 people in 1985, the deadliest bacterial food-borne outbreak recorded in U.S. history.

Raw-milk advocates argue that unpasteurized milk from grass-fed cows raised humanely in open fields and handled hygienically is inherently safer than the milk from large and crowded commercial farms, where disease is rampant. Unfortunately, the new CDC research doesn't support this notion, because outbreaks from bad raw milk are emanating from seemingly clean and humane farms.

"Restricting the sale of raw milk products is likely to reduce the number of outbreaks and can help keep people healthier," said Robert Tauxe, CDC's deputy director of the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases, in a press statement tied to this latest study.

In light of the CDC analysis, the best advice for raw-milk connoisseurs is to think of raw milk as analogous to raw eggs, meat, fish or oysters. Also, think twice before giving raw milk to children, as they constitute the majority of the victims of raw-milk illnesses.

• 7 Perfect Survival Foods
• 5 Wacky Things That Are Good for Your Health
• 10 New Ways to Eat Well

The flu season may finally be picking up steam after the slowest start in nearly three decades, a new government report suggests. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an uptick in the number of samples testing positive for the virus -- 10.5 percent in the first week of February versus 7.6 percent the week before.

That suggests that the flu season is just off to a late start, CDC researchers say. Interestingly, it’s only the second time in 29 years that the percentage of respiratory samples testing positive remained under 10 percent through January.

"The peak of flu cases most commonly occurs in January or February, but the timing can vary significantly year to year," says Dr Otto Yang, professor of medicine, division of infectious diseases, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Flu season generally hits as early as October and can continue as late as May.

"It's difficult to predict if this will overall be lower than other years, because we have not yet reached the peak yet," Yang says.

Another of the CDC’s indicators that suggests that flu activity is starting to pick up in certain areas around the country is the count of people who show flu-like symptoms. Two regions -- Central and Northwestern U.S. -- are reporting a bump in influenza-like illnesses above baseline for the first time this year. And California is now reporting widespread influenza activity, while Missouri, Texas and Virginia have been reporting localized upticks.

Yang suggests the flu is peaking first in California because of its coastal location. "I can only speculate, but California is a state with lots of people traveling in and out, including people from areas where flu typically starts its spread each season," Yang says.

That may bode ill for the rest of the country, says Dr. Richard Zimmerman, a professor of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “It’s fairly common for the west to precede the east,“ he explains. “But that’s not always true.”

If you still haven’t gotten your flu shot this year, get vaccinated right away, the CDC recommends, and Zimmerman agrees.

“This is really the last chance to get vaccinated,” he says.  “It takes anywhere from one to two weeks for the vaccine to become effective.”

Other than vaccination, stay at home when you're sick -- and cross your fingers that your colleagues or schoolmates do the same, Zimmerman says. (Although for those who don’t have any sick leave left -- or never had any in the first place -- that can be a tough call.)

The only other protection you have against the flu is regular hand-washing. But no matter how fastidious you are, hand washing can only do so much in face of a virus that is mostly spread through the air when people cough and sneeze.

Related:

• Whining wanted: Project tracks flu, one sneeze at a time
• New flu virus in 3 kids raises concern over wider spread
• Flu shot not as effective as thought (but get one, anyway)

Despite public health messages telling Americans to lower the amount of salt in their diets, most of us still eat too much of the stuff, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nine out of 10 people ages 2 and older in the United States consume more than the recommended amount of sodium each day, the report says, and the leading culprit is not potato chips or popcorn but slices of bread and dinner rolls.

Bread may not have much salt in a single serving, but when eaten several times a day can raise daily salt intake. A single slice of white bread could contain as many as 230 milligrams of salt, according to the CDC.

The average American takes in about 3,300 milligrams of sodium per day — and that's not counting the salt you might shake onto your food before you eat it. The 2010 U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend people limit the salt in their diet to 2,300 milligrams per day. And for 6 out of every 10 adults, the recommended limit is substantially lower: those who are 51 years or older, African-American, have high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney diseases are advised to limit their sodium intake to 1,500 milligrams per day. About 99 percent of people in this latter group eat too much salt, the report says.

"Too much sodium raises blood pressure, which is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke,” Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a statement. "These diseases kill more than 800,000 Americans each year, and contribute an estimated $273 billion in health care costs," he said.

A 2010 report from the CDC, based on surveys from 2005 to 2006, also found that 9 in 10 Americans consume too much salt. However, the average daily sodium intake reported back then was slighly higher, about 3,500 milligrams.

Top sources of sodium
The report identified the top 10 sources of sodium in our diets, which include a lot of food we find tasty. These are, in order: breads and rolls, luncheon meats, pizza, poultry, soups, cheeseburgers and other sandwiches, cheese, pasta dishes, meat dishes such as meat loaf, and snack foods like potato chips and pretzels. These foods account for 44 percent of all the sodium we eat in a day.

About 65 percent of our total daily sodium comes from foods we buy at the store. But within some of the food categories, such as pizza, about 50 percent comes from foods we buy at restaurants and fast food outlets.

For children ages 2 to 19, only about 8 percent of sodium comes from foods obtained from school cafeterias and day care centers, the report says.

The findings are based on surveys of 7,227 Americans conducted between 2007 and 2008.

Cutting back on salt
Cutting back on salt isn't easy, the report acknowledged. Some foods that may seem healthy, such as turkey lunchmeat that is low in calories and fat, may have high levels of sodium, the report said. In addition, a lot of the salt we eat comes from processed foods.

The CDC recommended Americans check food labels to purchase foods with lower sodium content. People should also try to consume a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, and limit the amount of processed foods with high sodium content, the CDC says.

Frieden said that some food manufacturers and restaurants are making efforts to lower the amount of salt added to their foods.

"We're encouraged that some food manufacturers are already taking steps to reduce sodium," Frieden said. "Kraft Foods has committed to an average 10 percent reduction of sodium in their products over a two-year period, and dozens of companies have joined a national initiative to reduce sodium. The leading supplier of cheese for pizza, Leprino Foods, is actively working on providing customers and consumers with healthier options," Frieden said.

Lowering the average American's salt intake by 400 milligrams could prevent up to 28,000 deaths, and save $7 billion in health-care costs, each year, according to projections in the report.

However, not all studies have been able to find benefits of a reduced salt diet. A review study published last year that included information from 6,500 people found that moderate reductions in salt in the diet lowered blood pressure, but did not reduce participants' risk of having heart disease or dying. Still, those researchers said that perhaps even greater reductions in salt were needed to see a benefit.

Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter@MyHealth_MHND. Find us onFacebook.

• 10 New Ways to Eat Well
• 6 Easy Ways to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
• 4 Foods that Are Worse for You than Twinkies

Reuters wire service contributed to this story.

Oklahoma health officials say that Taco Bell restaurants were the source of salmonella food poisoning linked to an outbreak that sickened 68 people in 10 states last fall.

Federal officials who have withheld the identity of the Mexican-style fast-food restaurant chain tied to the outbreak said they have not changed their position.

"Our response remains the same," said Lola Russell, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Kristy Bradley, the state's epidemiologist, had staff forward documents that confirmed that of the 16 Oklahoma residents infected with the outbreak strain of the bacteria, eight consumed food from Taco Bell. That included eight of 12 who were able to be interviewed in connection with the outbreak. 

CDC officials have masked the source, identified only as "Restaurant Chain A," in accordance with what the agency said is a longstanding policy that balances public health risk with the business concerns of firms that could be harmed by bad publicity.

Oklahoma released the documents in response to requests from msnbc.com and others, said Leslea Bennet-Webb, a spokeswoman for the state health department. The agency originally deferred to CDC, and asked the agency if the documents should be protected from public disclosure. When CDC did not respond by a Tuesday deadline, the state agreed to release the information.

But food safety advocates had been putting pressure on state and federal agencies to reveal the name of firms involved in outbreaks in this case -- and those in the future.

"I think it just proves the point that it is always better to be transparent," said Bill Marler, a Seattle food safety lawyer who used his blog to lobby vigorously for the release of the name. "Taco Bell could have looked like a hero by coming out and saying that it was a supplier problem and they are going to work hard to make sure it never happens again."

Rob Poetsch, a spokesman with Taco Bell Corp. a subsidary of Yum! Brands Inc., issued a statement late Wednesday, after msnbc.com reported that the company's name had been released:

"The CDC has stated the public health is not at any risk and this incident is completely over," he wrote.  "They have not identified the food source of the food borneillness that occurred in October and November of 2011. The CDC indicated that some of the people who were ill ate at Taco Bell, while others did not.  They  believe that the problem likely occurred at the supplier level before it was delivered to any restaurant or food outlet. We take food quality and safety very seriously."

This is the third outbreak involving the restaurant chain since 2006. That year, contaminated lettuce was tied to an outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7. In 2010, Taco Bell was eventually revealed as the source of two outbreaks of rare strains of salmonella that sickened 155 people in 21 states.

The hunt for the name followed an outbreak of salmonella Enteritidis investigated by the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and health officials in 10 states.

The wide-ranging probe found infections in far-flung states, but identified no specific food item or ingredient responsible for the illnesses, likely because several ingredients were mixed together in many menu items, officials said.

However, officials noted that ground beef was an unlikely source of infection because of the safe handling practices used by Taco Bell.

Ultimately, officials concluded that contamination likely occurred before food products reached Taco Bell locations, the report said.

CDC officials confirmed 16 victims in Oklahoma and more in nine other states, including 43 in Texas, two in Kansas and one each in Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio and Tennessee.

Dr. Robert Tauxe, the CDC's director of the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases, said that the agency has long tried to weigh the public health risk of an outbreak with the concerns of the business involved. That ensures future cooperation under a voluntary system, he said.

"If there's not an important public health reason to use the name publicly, CDC doesn't use the name publicly," he said.

This is the second time a state has broken ranks with CDC and FDA officials to name Taco Bell as the source of an outbreak. In 2010, Oregon epidemiologist Dr. William Keene told media outlets that the source was Taco Bell. CDC officials said the information was released "in error," but Keene told msnbc.com it was deliberate, indeed.

"It was a normal release of what we considered public information," Keene said. "There was no compelling reason to keep it secret then."

Related story:

Who's behind that outbreak? Sometimes, CDC won't say

The child abuse that takes place in one year in the United States will cost the nation $124 billion over the victims' lifetimes, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The findings reveal the financial burden of child abuse is just as high or higher than that of costly health conditions, including Type 2 diabetes.

"No child should ever be the victim of abuse or neglect — nor do they have to be. The human and financial costs can be prevented through prevention of child maltreatment," said Linda C. Degutis, director of CDC′s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

In 2008, there were 1,740 confirmed cases of fatal child abuse, and 579,000 nonfatal cases of child maltreatment, which include physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and neglect, according to the report.

The cost of health care, child welfare and other services for each victim who survived their abuse will be $210,012 over the average victim's lifetime, which is higher than the lifetime cost of stroke ($159,846 per person) and Type 2 diabetes (between $181,000 and $253,000 per person). The costs of each death due to abuse are even higher, according to the report.

Child maltreatment has been shown to have many negative effects on survivors, including poorer health, social and emotional difficulties, and decreased economic productivity. These negative effects over a survivor’s lifetime generate many costs that deleteriously affect the nation's health care, education, criminal justice and welfare systems. 

The estimated average lifetime cost per victim of nonfatal child maltreatment includes:

• $32,648 in childhood health care costs
• $10,530 in adult medical costs
• $144,360 in productivity losses
• $7,728 in child welfare costs
• $6,747 in criminal justice costs
• $7,999 in special education costs

The estimated average lifetime cost per death includes:

• $14,100 in medical costs
• $1,258,800 in productivity losses

The emotional and behavioral problems associated with child maltreatment include aggression, conduct disorder, antisocial behavior, substance abuse, intimate partner violence, teenage pregnancy, anxiety, depression and suicide, according to the report.

Better solutions to prevent childhood maltreatment must be found, the CDC said. A parent's or caregiver's behavior is influenced by a range of inter-related factors, such as how they were raised, their parenting skills, the level of stress in their life, and the living conditions in their community.

"Federal, state and local public health agencies as well as policymakers must advance the awareness of the lifetime economic impact of child maltreatment and take immediate action with the same momentum and intensity dedicated to other high-profile public health problems in order to save lives, protect the public's health, and save money,” Degutis said.

Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter@MyHealth_MHND. Find us onFacebook.

• Hypersex to Hoarding: 7 New Psychological Disorders
• 11 Tips to Lower Stress
• Childhood Abuse Can Wreak Havoc on Teen Brains

Salmonella strain that sickened 109 people, including a man who died, was initially identified only as "strain X" by the CDC.

When government health officials wrapped up a three-month investigation of a salmonella Enteritidis outbreak that sickened 68 people in 10 states, the final report on Jan. 19 included nearly every detail -- except the name of the place that sold the food.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has refused to identify the source, other than as “Restaurant Chain A,” a Mexican-style fast-food chain.

That’s the second time in a little more than a year that the agency has masked the source of foodborne illness at a similar chain. In August 2010, a final CDC report found that 155 people in 21 states were sickened by two rare strains of salmonella traced to an anonymous Mexican-style fast-food chain eventually identified as Taco Bell.

Two other recent outbreaks with initially hidden sources -- laboratory-supplied salmonella Typhimuirium identified only as “strain X,” and an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in romaine lettuce from “grocery store Chain A” -- have spurred new scrutiny of the agency’s willingness to keep the entities behind some infectious outbreaks secret.

Food safety advocates say the practice keeps the public in the dark about which firms have been linked to illness.

“It will eventually come out and it will be the company that looks bad,” said Doug Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University and author of a food safety blog. “A lot of these problems could be reduced if government agencies were more transparent about how they decide when to go public.”

Dr. Robert Tauxe, a top CDC official, defended the agency’s practice of withholding company identities, which he said aims to protect not only public health, but also the bottom line of businesses that could be hurt by bad publicity. The CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and state health departments often identify companies responsible for outbreaks, but sometimes do not.

“The longstanding policy is we publicly identify a company only when people can use that information to take specific action to protect their health,” said Tauxe, the CDC’s deputy director of the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases.  

“On the other hand, if there’s not an important public health reason to use the name publicly, CDC doesn’t use the name publicly.”

Because companies supply vital information about outbreaks voluntarily, CDC seeks to preserve cordial relationships.

“We don’t want to compromise that cooperation we’ll need,” Tauxe said.

But critics such as Bill Marler, a Seattle food safety lawyer, say that the government owes the public early and full disclosure during illness outbreaks.

“In today’s society, where transparency is so important for decision-making, I just don’t think government has the right to withhold that information from the public,” said Marler, who has pushed hard for the CDC to identify the firm behind the latest outbreak.

He all but outed Taco Bell in a blog post late Monday that chronicled in which states with illnesses certain Mexican fast-food chains operate.

If Taco Bell were indeed the entity involved in the latest outbreak, the information would allow consumers to decide whether they wanted to continue eating at a fast-food chain implicated in similar outbreaks in 2006 and 2010, Marler said.

In 2010, the CDC withheld the identity of the Mexican-style “Restaurant Chain A.” But when the name was released in error to media outlets, the CDC confirmed it, said Lola Russell, an agency spokeswoman.

The agency has not confirmed that the “Restaurant Chain A” in the 2010 outbreak is the same as in the 2011 incident, and they will not comment on whether it’s Taco Bell, Russell said.

Officials with two other Mexican-style fast-food restaurant chains with sites in the affected states, Qdoba and Chipotle Mexican Grill, told msnbc.com they were not questioned in connection with the outbreak.

Taco Bell officials did not return calls or e-mails from msnbc.com seeking comment.   

In the case of the outbreak of commercially produced salmonella Typhimurium that sickened 109 people between August 2010 and June 2011, including one man who died, the CDC withheld the specific strain that caused the illnesses. The victims of "strain X" were mostly clinical and teaching microbiology lab students and their families, but they could have spread the germs to the general public on contaminated lab coats and cells phones, investigators suggested. It was those lapses in lab practice, not the particular strain of bacteria, that caused most concern, officials said.

“In that case, we don’t think that one salmonella is a lot different from another salmonella,” Tauxe said. “The concern is not the strain, it’s what are the safety procedures and practices they use in the laboratory.”

The trouble, say food safety advocates, is that it’s not clear when or why CDC officials decide to withhold the identity of firms involved in outbreaks and when they decide to go public.

"No one is happy, and that's largely because there are no guidelines people can at least point to, whether they agree with the guidance or no," Powell said.

Tauxe acknowledged there’s no written policy or checklist that governs that decision, only decades of precedent.

“It’s a case-by-case thing and all the way back, as far as people can remember, there’s discussions of ‘hotel X’ or ‘cruise ship Y,” he said.

That just doesn’t pass muster, said Marler and other critics. 

“If the CDC has a good, rational reason for doing what they’re doing, fine,” he said. “Then write it down and hold it up for people like you and I to scrutinize.”

Related stories:

Microbiology labs linked to nationwide salmonella outbreak

Bagged salad recalled for possible salmonella contamination

19 people sickened by ground beef from Maine grocery store

By Mike Stobbe
Associated Press

A new government study suggests a lot of teenage girls are clueless about their chances of getting pregnant.

In a survey of thousands of teenage mothers who had unintended pregnancies, about a third said they didn't use birth control because they didn't believe they could get pregnant.

What were they thinking, exactly, isn't clear. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey didn't ask teens to explain their reasoning.

But other researchers have talked to teen moms who believed they couldn't get pregnant the first time they had sex, didn't think they could get pregnant at that time of the month or thought they were sterile.

"This report underscores how much misperception, ambivalence and magical thinking put teens at risk for unintended pregnancy," said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Other studies have asked teens about their contraception use and beliefs about pregnancy. But the CDC report released Thursday is the first to focus on teens who didn't want to get pregnant but did.

The researchers interviewed nearly 5,000 teenage girls in 19 states who gave birth after unplanned pregnancies in 2004 through 2008. The survey was done through mailed questionnaires with telephone follow-up.

About half of the girls in the survey said they were not using any birth control when they got pregnant. That's higher than surveys of teens in general, which have found that fewer than 20 percent said they didn't use contraception the last time they had sex.

"I think what surprised us was the extent that they were not using contraception," said Lorrie Gavin, a CDC senior scientist who co-authored the report.

Some of the teen moms were asked what kind of birth control they used: Nearly 20 percent said they used the pill or a birth control patch. Another 24 percent said they used condoms.

CDC officials said they do not believe that the pill, condoms and other forms of birth control were faulty. Instead, they think the teens failed to use it correctly or consistently.

Only 13 percent said they didn't use birth control because they had trouble getting it.

Another finding: Nearly a quarter of the teen moms said they did not use contraception because their partner did not want them to. That suggests that sex education must include not only information about anatomy and birth control, but also about how to deal with situations in which a girl feels pressured to do something she doesn't want to, Gavin said.

The findings are sobering, Albert said. But it's important to remember that the overall teen birth rate has been falling for some time, and recently hit its lowest mark in about 70 years.

Albert said it would be a mistake to come away from the report saying, "They can't figure this out?" "Most of them are figuring it out," he said.