Quotes by Laurie Garrett

“People are trying to do the right thing, but nobody knows what the right thing is. Every country feels like they have to do something, and so they order a quick technological fix.”

“It looks to me like were spending an awful lot of money per vaccinated American and an awful low amount on your essential surveillance.”

“Right now in human beings, it kills 55 percent of the people it infects. That makes it the most lethal flu we know of that has ever been on planet Earth affecting human beings.”

“Only communist China could take away civil liberties and get away with it.”

“If it happens, unions will refuse to fly, products will not be transferred, and we would see the global economy start to fall apart like a house of cards.”

“Were building a whole public health strategy based on these drugs, extrapolating a huge amount from a few small studies. How could you say they are efficacious? We dont know. Given that governments are spending millions, its unconscionable that companies arent giving more answers.”

“Measures we can take to handle pandemic flu if it emerges in the next six months are limited and bleak, but wise investments and strong science could well bolster the public health armamentarium considerably over the next five years.”

“Breeding birds pass their harmless strains to each other and the virus mutates.”

“What killed people during the outbreak in 1918 was not a weak immune system. An over-response from their own immune system known at ARDS killed them. They drowned in their own fluid.”

“[Right now] it is not highly contagious. This one has not made that mutational step. That is the shoe we hope never falls. As of right now it is very difficult for this type of transmission to happen. There are only a handful of examples.”

In all, 86 per cent of the increased life expectancy was due to decreases in infectious diseases. And the bulk of the decline in infectious disease deaths occurred prior to the age of antibiotics. Less than 4 per cent of the total improvement in life expectancy since 1700s can be credited to twentieth-century advances in medical care.

Ebola haunted Zaire because of corruption and political repression. The virus had no secret powers, nor was it unusually contagious. For centuries Ebola had lurked in the jungles of central Africa. Its emergence into human populations required the special assistance of humanitys greatest vices : greed, corruption, arrogance, tyranny, and callousness.

At no time in history have we succeeded in making, in a timely fashion, a specific vaccine for more than 260 million people.

“In all, 86 per cent of the increased life expectancy was due to decreases in infectious diseases. And the bulk of the decline in infectious disease deaths occurred prior to the age of antibiotics. Less than 4 per cent of the total improvement in life expectancy since 1700s can be credited to twentieth-century advances in medical care.”