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Source: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/3...#axzz2P7Dl3vT6
Underreported and misunderstood, Legionnaires? cases across U.S. soar
By Lou Kilzer
Published: Sunday, March 31, 2013, 12:01 a.m.
Updated 7 hours ago
Reported cases of Legionnaires' disease in the United States have jumped more than 260 percent since 2000, but the true number could make annual cases of the disease more common than brain cancer, leukemia or HIV, a Tribune-Review investigation has found.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded fewer than 400 cases of the deadly form of pneumonia in the 1990s. Then in 2000, the cases exploded to 1,100. By 2011, about 4,200 cases were reported, according to CDC figures obtained by the Trib.
?When I first saw the figures (on new cases), they were startling,? said Janet Stout, a Legionnaires' expert and director of the Special Pathogens Laboratory in Pittsburgh.
Yet foreign research obtained by the Trib shows that the Legionnaires' cases reported to the CDC probably represent less than 5 percent of the actual cases...
Underreported and misunderstood, Legionnaires? cases across U.S. soar
By Lou Kilzer
Published: Sunday, March 31, 2013, 12:01 a.m.
Updated 7 hours ago
Reported cases of Legionnaires' disease in the United States have jumped more than 260 percent since 2000, but the true number could make annual cases of the disease more common than brain cancer, leukemia or HIV, a Tribune-Review investigation has found.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded fewer than 400 cases of the deadly form of pneumonia in the 1990s. Then in 2000, the cases exploded to 1,100. By 2011, about 4,200 cases were reported, according to CDC figures obtained by the Trib.
?When I first saw the figures (on new cases), they were startling,? said Janet Stout, a Legionnaires' expert and director of the Special Pathogens Laboratory in Pittsburgh.
Yet foreign research obtained by the Trib shows that the Legionnaires' cases reported to the CDC probably represent less than 5 percent of the actual cases...