Osterholm Quotes

"With a virus like this, you have to view this as a journey, not a yes or no event."

"Not using irradiation is the single greatest public health failure of the last part of the 20th century in America."

"This is really a pivotal moment in the evolution of MERS."

"We could be in the early days of another SARS-like event."

"We now have intentionally lowered the bar to the point . . . where we have made it possible for laboratories around the world to do this work."

“Protecting camels right now may be the single most important thing we can do to protect humans.”

“It's another reason why we need to accelerate efforts to come up with really game-changing flu vaccines.”

“While this phenomenon is not new, I think this is really the first time we’ve seen the direct relationship between sub-standard protection levels and the vaccine strain.”

“With triclosan, it’s clear that evidence of risk of its use to society is mounting.”

“For each link in the chain of transmission, you’re trying to break it, and ideally the best way to break it is to keep camels from getting infected.”

"If the risks are something to be measured, then in a risk-benefit analysis this chemical shouldn't and doesn't hold up.”

"We're now at the second level of concern. The third level could happen tomorrow.”

"H7N9 is blowing right by H5N1. I’m really worried about that."

"We're in a 'stay tuned' moment right now. If that happens [mutation for easy H7N9 human spread], then bets are off. It's potential pandemic time."

"We don't know yet if there's an infectious cloud that comes off the bird markets that can infect nearby humans."

"The psychology of influenza vaccination uptake is sometimes almost as complex as the disease itself."

"This doesn't fundamentally change the risk picture for H5N1 around the world."

"It surely gives us reason to believe that ... camel infections could be a very important source of human infection."

"Based on what we're seeing so far, this year will be a very different picture than last year . . . we fully expect to see many more cases in younger children and middle-aged adults."

"Obviously it's never too late to do these studies . . . but again it begs the question why they weren't done six or seven months ago."