Osterholm Quotes

"This year is more on the severe end, but this is what you should expect from seasonal flu."

"You have to have the vision coming out of the administration [to adequately fund flu research], and we don’t have that right now."

"You have a major funding deficit at the federal level, which is really dangerous. If we had a replay of the Spanish flu [the 1918 pandemic], we’d be hosed.”

"What's the business model here? Am I going to spend more than $1 billion to make a [universal flu] vaccine when I can only sell $20 million worth of doses?"

"We've really set ourselves up for a very, very serious situation. I'm afraid that this [relying on offshore medicine and devices] could be the worst mistake here with the flu. With the fall hurricanes we experienced, we're now seeing that very, very major problem, because over 60% of all IV bags we use in medical around the world are made in Puerto Rico."

"Putting a few million dollars here and there into a [game-changing] flu vaccine is not going to get us what we need. It's going to take billions of dollars and extensive collaboration and research to get a vaccine done."

"One of the things that makes pandemics of influenza more consequential today than ever is the fact that we've become so dependent on global trade for essential products of life. The collateral damage in the next pandemic could be substantially more than what's actually caused by influenza itself if we have a major shortage of these life-saving drugs."

"Just to supply the needs of Shanghai, about 100 million chickens are born each month. On average, it's about 35 days from the time a chicken is hatched until it’s on the plate. That's just one city."

"Each year, the healthcare system gets a thinner and thinner veneer of preparedness. It takes less and less impact for a healthcare system to go from routine to crisis."

"There's nothing really that can impact on a national level — or for that matter on an international level — more quickly than influenza."

"Australia, among other Southern Hemisphere countries, actually had a major problem with influenza. . . . And in that setting, the vaccine had only limited impact, about 10% protection. So we anticipated that could be the case here and unfortunately that's exactly what we're finding."

"The only real expertise in the world to make these vaccines [for emerging public health threats] in a quantity and a safety environment is in the private sector. If the private sector isn't fully engaged and involved, it's a show stopper."

"There is no apparent effort to make [universal flu] vaccines a priority in the current administration. Its national security strategy published last month cites Ebola and SARS as potential bioterrorism and pandemic threats, yet makes no mention of the risk of pandemic influenza."

"We are not prepared. Our current [flu] vaccines are based on 1940s research. Deploying them against a severe global pandemic would be equivalent to trying to stop an advancing battle tank with a single rifle."

"As bad as this winter’s epidemic is, it won’t compare with the flu pandemic that is almost certainly on the horizon if we don’t dedicate energy and resources to a universal vaccine."

"If someone finds a way to make the Ebola virus more dangerous, I don’t believe that should be available to anybody off the street who could use it for nefarious purposes. . . . We want to keep some of this stuff on a need-to-know basis."

"I will be the first to acknowledge there have been no big outbreaks or situations that have occurred yet from a dead body. But I am absolutely convinced it’s just a matter of time."

"Unfortunately, [H3N2 influenza is] the one strain that the vaccine is really underperforming in, in every regard."

"Clinicians love to be independent operators. . . . What we have to do is basically share with them how they can improve their clinical care [using antimicrobial stewardship], when they are in control and have at their fingertips the best possible information in the quickest possible time."

"I must admit on a whole, we have not taken these areas as seriously as we can and should. I'm embarrassed to say in my own home state of Minnesota, only 24 percent of hospitals had a recognized antibiotic stewardship program in place [in 2015]."