Osterholm Quotes

"It is like having one huge child-care facility, operating with a number of people challenged by their [levels of] chemical intake. . . . Just one or two people vomiting . . . could explain this entire situation. People might think it was because they drank too much alcohol, but it's actually (that they were sick with) norovirus."

They're "the heart and soul of a lot of the decisions being made about where to expend resources. . . . How to respond, where to respond and when to respond require an everyday review of what we hope is good intelligence, and the group is expert at that."

"Last year, we estimate that as many as 15,000 carcasses may have been served to people that were CWD-positive. And what people don’t understand with prion-related conditions like this is that time changes the risk."

"This is an exceptional collaboration by those most knowledgeable about a particular food safety risk. Their value in shedding light on the Cyclospora cayetanensis outbreak problem cannot be overstated and is already providing long-needed assistance toward discovering how best to manage risk and limit future outbreaks."

"We are truly in uncharted Ebola-control territory. Even in the 2014-15 [Ebola] epidemic in West Africa, once public health programs and vaccination efforts were put into place, it brought about a rather rapid reduction of cases. We've never encountered a situation where a geographic region becomes almost completely impossible to work in because of insecurity."

"A lot of people thought that [taking precaution against BSE] was an overreaction. Then, of course, in 1996, 10 years later, we recognized that in fact transmission had occurred."

"You are going to hear from people that [CWD] is not going to be a problem other than a game farm issue. You're going to hear from people that it's not going to transmit to people and I hope they're right, but I wouldn't bet on it. And if we lose this one and haven't done all we can do, we will pay a price."

"The problem is not because you have an inferior [Ebola] vaccine response. Frankly this is outstanding. The challenge is getting it into people."

"I think it's very important because it helps give the world a better sense of how effective this [Ebola] vaccine is. And that the real challenges are not about 'Does the vaccine work?' It’s whether the vaccine gets used.

"We're at a critical time in this outbreak. Doing the same thing over and over again does not appear to be working."

"Gina was one of the most respected colleagues in our business; she was never wrong because of doing her homework to always know the facts."

"To claim that there hasn't yet been transmission [to humans] tells us little."

"It's kind of a genetic roulette table. One of the things we worry about is that as more and more transmission occurs within the cervid population, you have more chances for genetic changes to occur in the [CWD] prions, which could make them more likely to infect humans"

“We're kind of at a deja vu-like moment with what's happening with the rapid spread of CWD and the subsequent consumption by humans of contaminated venison, and what happened in Great Britain [with "mad cow" disease]. Granted, we don't have any evidence that it's happened here yet, but we're talking about potentially a 10-year incubation period."

"Right now finding these trophy deer that are being moved from one state to another to put into game farms is a huge challenge; that's how this [CWD] prion is moving."

"Imagine if [CWD] did get transmitted to cows and the field whether dairy or not this would have an incredible impact on our meat industry right here in Minnesota and throughout the country."

"I would have to say that all the planning that's gone on to date and the pre-vaccination and the surveillance efforts, I would say we have a very high likelihood [of containing an Ebola outbreak in nations neighboring DR Congo]. Those areas are much more stable than their adjoining neighbor in DRC."

"That, to me, is one of the smartest investments we could make, setting up these kinds of laboratories [such as in Entebbe, Uganda, to detect Ebola and other pathogens] and public health systems throughout the world. For every dollar we spend on them, we will reap back, I believe, many, many dollars in return in terms of not having to fight a much larger problem."

"There is an immediate and critical need for national leadership on addressing CWD, and the CWD Program establishes the University of Minnesota as both the national and international center for CWD response, research, education and policy."

"We don't have a generation to get an answer. How can we fast forward? It can't be business as usual. We can't decide we are going to take on programs that may take decades before they are realized."