Osterholm Quotes

"I would do everything I could to make sure we had a highly sensitive, easy-to-use test for chronic wasting disease that could be used in the field. You'd know right there on the spot: Is this animal infected or not?"

"If I was the benevolent dictator of chronic wasting disease, I would virtually try to eliminate game farms. They've demonstrated time and time again that they can't be assured to be good citizens in terms of trying to stop the transmission of this prion."

"To date, CWD has really been handled largely as a wildlife-management issue. It has not been handled as a human health issue. Because there haven't been any cases, and so of course we tend to wait. This is one of the challenges of a disease like this, particularly when the incubation period is potentially so long."

"First of all, we've got to get rid of this damn 'zombie' label. I think it minimizes the issue of what's happening. And there's nothing zombie about this chronic wasting disease, any more than calling humans with neurologic disease zombies. It's just wrong."

"The real test we need is for a deer that’s killed, so people know whether the meat they're eating is infected [with chronic wasting disease]."

"We don't want to find out 10 years from now that we should have been doing something in 2019 [about chronic wasting disease] but didn't."

"People have to understand the significance of this. We can't wait until we have the first [human CWD] cases coming."

"Given the general sense by most countries that smallpox will not again be a serious public health challenge, it’s unlikely that we will see much investment in developing and stockpiling these fourth-generation vaccines any time soon."

"How will those drugs be deployed in countries where a smallpox outbreak might emerge? There are still many challenges considering how the limited supplies of both vaccine and drugs would be distributed. An intentional attack launched simultaneously in multiple global regions would complicate the response still further."

"Most bioterrorism preparedness experts agree that the likelihood that smallpox could return and cause a devastating regional or even global outbreak remains very low. Nonetheless, because of the potential consequences of such an outbreak, I believe that society has no choice but to have at least a moderate level of preparedness."

"Measles makes an infected child into a viral Uzi."

"It is probable that human cases of CWD associated with the consumption of contaminated meat will be documented in the years ahead. It is possible that number of human cases will be substantial and will not be isolated events."

"If Stephen King could write an infectious disease novel, he would write about prions like this."

"What our work will be doing is bringing together the world’s expertise, whether they’re at the World Health Organization or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the NIH. And we will really serve as you might say 'air traffic control' on a global level for trying to develop new and better flu vaccinations."

"No one should assume that this means there's going to be this new universal flu vaccine in the next several years. This is going to take a lot of work. It's going to take billions of dollars and research that will be considered cutting edge at the time it's done and doesn't exist yet today. But we're optimistic that we can have a [universal] flu vaccine."

"Influenza, and particularly pandemic influenza, remains one of the greatest global health challenges today, and the results of this project will go a long way toward reducing these risks."

"By highlighting key research gaps, identifying strategic goals and milestones and encouraging synergistic R&D [research and development] activities, the roadmap will serve as a valuable tool to advance a complex field of vaccine research and stimulate informed investment in influenza vaccine R&D."

"Frankly, if the Chinese want to go to war with us, they wouldn't have to fire a single shot. They would just shut down the drug distribution overnight."

"What we are doing now is working backward, looking at the entire global supply chain for these products."

"We don't pretend we're going to fix [supply chain issues] yet. We've just got to get people to understand the vulnerability."