Osterholm Quotes

"[A universal influenza vaccine] would be the single most important thing we can do in public health today."

“2017 not only brings a new president to the White House, but also a new director-general to the World Health Organization and a new United Nations secretary general. . . . As a result, there is tremendous uncertainty about the future practice and policies of global and domestic public health."

"I wouldn’t sit here and say, 'Such studies shouldn’t be done,' but I still fail to see at this point how it's going to better prepare the human race for the next infectious disease that jumps from animals to humans."

"By the time we realize the hurricane is here, we’re already in the eye of it."

"If the world is going to come to grips with the inevitability of antimicrobial resistance, we need a new game plan to deal with it. This meeting represents the first critical step in any journey moving forward."

"That's just wrong. To get a true picture of what’s going on in Florida, you want to know, among anyone who was in Florida, who acquired [Zika] there. ... That's how it should be counted. If they're not, then that sounds to me like they’re trying to minimize their number of cases."

"If we use up our [yellow fever] vaccine supply and we end up with transmission in more cities, then all bets are off. It's like having your headlights out when you're driving on a road with hundreds of deer. It's only a matter of time before you crash."

"D.A. [Henderson, who died on Aug 20] was a giant intellectually, he was a giant in his personality, and he didn’t shy away from controversy. . . . He always stressed the fact that without comprehensive disease surveillance, you just couldn’t run an effective public health program."

"Some of these products, particularly some vaccines, may take 500 million to a billion dollars. And they could lose many more along the way. And so with that, it could take years [for a Zika vaccine to reach market]."

"If citizens merely clean up any little small body of water — one little bottle cap, a discarded dish is a beautiful incubating place for the Aedes mosquito that transmits Zika — you can do a lot [to combat Zika]."

"When cases like this occur, it's critical that there be rapid epidemiological investigations to determine the likely location where the mosquito exposure occurred. Only with that can you identify the breeding sites and eliminate them."

"We'd all like it to be the peak of the outbreak, that would be wonderful. At the same time, I see nothing that supports that."

"The bottom line message is: If you’re going to share body fluids with Zika, there’s a risk."

"I really believe the worst is yet to come with Zika throughout the Americas. It has not peaked."

"We're going to see this [Zika] likely peak in the next 12 to 18 months in terms of the number of new infections. And then as more people become infected, and recover, the transmission dynamics will drop."

"Why should we have to wait until the crisis is right upon us before we act? Africa is like a gas can waiting for the yellow fever match to hit it."

"The CDC doesn't have the resources to be in every community. It's not the national health department. That would be like asking the FBI to provide local police service."

"We probably will respond to Zika with some urgency. But just know that these other crises are going to take a back seat. The public will get what they pay for in public health."

"The take-home message is you have to consider any kind of intimate contact between an infected person with Zika and a non-infected person as a potential risk situation, regardless of gender."

"I give [the CDC] credit for making clear and unambiguous statements about the [Zika-related] neurologic complications."