Bill Gates Quotes

We can't predict when infectios diseases will break out, but their breakout is inevitable. That is why we must be prepared.

There is no firm dividing line between what is an epidemic and what is not an epidemic, but I think, when you look at a map that shows widespread influenza activity in 36 states, that we regard it -- from a common-sense perspective -- as an epidemic.

I just want people to know the facts and science and the information... measles is preventable.

We need a malaria epidemic in the blogging community! Either that or we need people who have seen the malaria epidemic to start blogging.

We need to think of chronic disease, hypertension, cancer, like H1N1. In fact, there's an epidemic of chronic disease.

AIDS didn’t announce itself when it arrived, and it was only after it started taking its toll that we realized our problem.

Mr. Speaker, it is matter of common knowledge that an epidemic of alarming proportions is prevailing throughout the country. Out of an abundant precaution the Senate has ordered the galleries closed, which action, I understand, meets with the approval of the medical authorities, and so I ask unanimous consent that the Speaker be instructed to close the galleries of this House until further action shall be taken by the House.

I'm very pro vaccine. I get all six of my kids vaccinated. I believe vaccines save millions of lives, and people ought to be getting vaccinated.

Health officials are saying the number of measles cases that originated in Disneyland continues to grow. Which is why this year after the game the Super Bowl MVPshouted, 'No way am I going to Disneyland!'

There is a chance that we could have at least as many dying from communicable diseases as we've had dying from the tsunami.

This outbreak is moving ahead of efforts to control it.

Smallpox is natural; vaccine ain't.

One of the mysteries of hep B immunization is that vaccinating only 'high risk' groups, which was the original public health strategy, did not bring down rates of infection.

Vaccines don't cause autism. Vaccines, instead, prevent disease. Vaccines have wiped out a score of formerly deadly childhood diseases. Vaccine skepticism has helped to bring some of those diseases back from near extinction.

We've all learned about this disease since it was first discovered several years ago in Europe. And so I think we've learned from the European experience.

When most members of a community are vaccinated, they protect those who are not by eliminating the viral reservoirs in the population. The effect is known as 'herd immunity.'

Ninety percent of the cases of polio are in security-vulnerable areas.

This is an industry that doesn't have the common cold... It has cholera.

We're all in denial from time to time. We all see things that are too painful to really deal with. But this has consequences, and the consequences of not vaccinating your children are not only just that those children are exposed to illnesses; it's that everyone else they go to school with and they hang around with are, too.

When I first went public with my son Evan's story, I just planned to talk about the 'R' word - Recovery. But soon I was spending most my time talking about the 'V' word - vaccines.

There's a cultural expectation that everyone will be immunized, in part to protect the entire population. When people refuse that expectation, they're indulging in a certain kind of political or social immunity.

There are commonalities among all the pandemics that occur, and we can learn from them. One commonality is that they all come from animals. And the other commonality is that we wait too long.

Pandemics happen. When they do, they change the world.

Global pandemics---whether naturally occurring or intentionally spread---pose a greater threat than most man-made weapons of mass destruction.

Microbial foes have the advantage of an extraordinary capacity to rapidly reproduce and adapt, thereby propagating themselves even in the face of impressive advances in public health and the availability of countermeasures such as diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. This inherent adaptability of microbes can only be matched with the continual application of wit and technological capability. The best defense for the human species against elimination by the ever-evolving waves of microbial pathogens are public health measures coordinated with biomedical research that will continue to provide innovative tools to counterbalance these endless microbial challenges. Ultimately, if medical science continues to fight the microbial foes to a draw, as has occurred for much of the past century, humanity will have won.