NIOSH: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) becomes part of CDC, further expanding CDC's sphere of research into occupational health.

Lead Exposure: A team of EIS officers joins the local health department in El Paso, Texas, to investigate lead exposure associated with an ore smelter, increasing the scientific understanding of lead poisoning in children. Many studies have since documented the public health threat, including lower IQs among children, posed by poorly controlled lead emissions from lead smelters around the world. The United States removed lead from gasoline in 1976.

Vinyl Chloride: EIS officers investigate liver cancer deaths of B.F. Goodrich employees in Louisville, Kentucky. A new occupational hazard, vinyl chloride, is discovered, and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA) sets standards.

Human Salmonella: Pet turtles are recognized as a source of human Salmonella, accounting for approximately 14% (280,000) of cases in the United States annually. During 1972-1974, a total of 474,000 turtles from Mississippi and Louisiana are certified as free of Salmonella. Officials later learn that the turtles were infected before their certification. The FDA in 1975 bans all interstate shipment of pet turtles in the United States.

EIS Officer: The EIS names its first non-U.S. citizen EIS officer, J. Malcolm Harrington, from the United Kingdom.

Intentional Deaths: For the first time, CDC studies homicide, exploring intentional deaths in hospitals. Several studies emerged from this early work and were published in the 1980s.

Infection Control: CDC takes on its largest medical study, The Study for Efficacy of Nosocomial Infection Control (SENIC), to evaluate hospitals' infection control procedures. SENIC demonstrated for the first time the effectiveness of infection control activities.

Swine Flu: A rare influenza strain is reported among soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, leaving one dead. This strain, called swine flu, killed 500,000 people in the United States and more than 20 million worldwide in 1918-1919. To prevent another epidemic, 50 million Americans are vaccinated in 10 weeks, setting an immunization world record. Although a swine flu epidemic was averted, many people who received the vaccine developed Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), a rare neurological disease with polio-like symptoms.

Lassa Fever: The EIS helps set up a field laboratory in Sierra Leone to study the cause of the deadly Lassa fever found in Lassa, Nigeria, in 1969.

Ebola: EIS officers go to Zaire and Sudan to investigate a mysterious fever that sends its victims into shock with massive external and internal hemorrhages. Of 318 people infected, 280 (90%) die. This new illness is named after a nearby river, Ebola. CDC also responds to Ebola outbreaks in Zaire in 1977-1978, 1980, 1981, and 1995; in Sudan in 1979; Gabon in 1996; and Uganda in 2000-2001.

Legionnaires' Disease: CDC investigators discover that a bacterium causes Legionnaires' disease. This finding solves two earlier mysteries – a 1965 outbreak in Washington, D.C.'s St. Elizabeth's Hospital and a 1968 outbreak in Pontiac, Michigan (referred to as "Pontiac fever") that left more than 60 county health workers ill. In a 1976 epidemic, 221 people became sick and 34 died following an American Legion Convention in Philadelphia. More than 20 EIS officers investigated this outbreak.

CASH: The large, multistate Cancer and Steroid Hormone (CASH) study begins to study the association between birth control pill use and estrogen replacement therapy with breast, endometrial, and ovarian cancers.

Reye Syndrome: An EIS officer suspects a connection between aspirin use and Reye syndrome, a rare neurological disease found mainly in children. Reye syndrome kills 40% of its victims and leaves many others brain damaged. After studies in Ohio and Michigan, articles are published revealing its connection to aspirin.