Osterholm Quotes

"His impact on foodborne disease epidemiology will not stop because of his death."

"We have to be careful about assuming that this is just in camels. If camels can be infected then it's very likely that other domestic animals can be infected as well."

"It's early, premature deaths that we should be in a position of preventing. And this is what this pandemic pointed out — that this was not seasonal flu."

"A death in an 82-year-old is very different than in a healthy 21-year-old female who happened to be pregnant."

"It's like putting a 1940s transmission in a 2014 car."

"The eggs should be long gone."

“I’m very high on hand washing. I just think the attributable prevention factor for flu has been oversold.”

"If the primary body fluid involved with transmitting [bat] coronaviruses to other animal species or humans is feces, the question becomes: How often is that likely to occur?"

"Influenza is virtually in a class by itself. Many other agents worked on within BSL-4 labs don’t have that transmissibility that we see with influenza."

"It's just a matter of time before one of the satellite [MERS] cases ends up in an area where surveillance and infection control are not like they are in Europe, and we have the potential of a large event somewhere else in the world."

"The fact that we have such incomplete information a year into this is just inexcusable."

"The epidemiology suggests unrecognized person-to-person cases."

"What I do know for certain, based on these studies, that if I get vaccinated now and major flu activity is in January or February, I may have no protection left."

"We all as a global public health community have a right to know what's being done to stop these ongoing transmissions because this could be in our lap tomorrow."

“This is not based on science, and it’s dangerous . . . it’s just quackery.”

"This thing should have been solved a month ago."

“This one is very solvable. This is one of the easy ones. . . . If this same number of cases had happened in Minnesota as happened in Iowa, this would have been solved weeks ago.”

"Those of us who have spent a lifetime in public health can see when an investigation is languishing and not finding answers, and it really does potentially pose risks to the public’s health."

"There is a lot of room in between 'don't worry' and 'on the brink of disaster.' "

"[A global MERS outbreak] may never happen. [But] it could happen tomorrow. It could happen this afternoon. And I think there's clearly enough data to support that."