Fact or Fiction: The “Reportable Diseases List” (are HSV & Herpes on it?)

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Fact or Fiction: The “Reportable Diseases List” (are HSV & Herpes on it?)

On July 24, 2014, in Blog, Education, by Admin

You’ve probably heard some rumors here and there about the CDC’s “Reportable Diseases List” (it’s actually the “National Notifiable Diseases List”). So, what is this list? What’s really on it? Do they really keep a database of people with STDs?

The CDC makes an annual list of diseases and conditions about which they would like to gather more epidemiological information. Sort of like a wish list for scientists and statisticians. In this case, “we wish we had more data about the state _____ in society”. They then model the specific data they’d like to gather for each condition, the manner in which they’d like it gathered – which tests, etc – format how’d they’d like it reported and send it out across the country. When people show up sick in the clinic or hospital with any of these conditions, the healthcare professionals follow the steps in the guidelines and submit the results to the health department, from city/county to the state, which compiles and forwards the data to the federal government.

What isn’t reported is any personal identifying information. They couldn’t care less who you are; they want to know how many people in the US got chickenpox this year, along with their demographics: their age, gender and race; city, county and state. That’s about it. If you happened to be diagnosed with some rare, life-threatening, potentially epidemic-causing disease, then yes – by all means – they’d keep tabs on you like you were a nuclear warhead and call the CDC immediately. However, that isn’t the case here. It’s HSV: most everyone carries at least one type. You may not already know that, but they most certainly do.

Mentions of Herpes-Related Topics On The CDC’s National Notifiable Diseases List, By Year (1993-2014)

As you can see, contrary to the myth, nothing pertaining to “HSV” or “Herpes” has ever appeared in the CDC’s Notifiable Diseases List going back to 1993. Nothing at all. That doesn’t mean some county health department might not have temporarily placed it on their own list at some point in time, but the CDC sure wasn’t looking for that information and there’s no logical reason anyone – including the county – would go through all the trouble to document something they already know most everyone carries. Not, at least, until they have a valid reason: to monitor the effectiveness of a national vaccine program or something of the sort.

Herpes Simplex isn’t on the list. Herpes Simplex has never been on the list. Not, at least, in the past 20 years. They don’t need anyone to report herpes; they already know most everyone carries HSV and that an unfortunate few will occasionally come down with herpes because of it. That’s not to say it might never make it on the list. If/when a vaccine should be discovered and they vaccinate the entire population, they may want to monitor the efficacy of that vaccine and see how the overall national prevalence is impacted. So, they may track it to see how many new cases crop up after the vaccination program rolls out. However, even if they did, they still wouldn’t care which individuals have it, what their names were; where they live. That’s all paranoia.

So what is “the list”? It’s a list of diseases, not people… and no, they don’t keep a “database of people with herpes” or any other condition, for that matter; they keep a database of demographic data about the people who have been affected by each disease on their list. Only in the case of extreme threats to public health – Bird Flu, Swine Flu, etc – might the CDC keep identifying info on actively infected persons, as they’ll actually need to remain in close contact with those persons and their physicians.

Your friendly neighborhood epidemiologist would be happy to confirm any of this for you.

Look for yourself. Here’s every list back to 1993:

Summary of Notifiable Diseases, United States, 2014

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Mentions:
Genital Herpes: No | Herpes: No | HSV-1: No | HSV-2: No

Summary of Notifiable Diseases, United States, 2013
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