P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Advances in science and medical research and public health policies have meant that life expectancy for Australians is one of the highest in the world.

Life expectancy in many parts of Africa can be something around the age of thirty five to thirty eight. I mean you're very fortunate if you live to that age. In fact when I went to Uganda for the first time one of the things that occurred to me was that I saw very few elderly people.

The hallmark of a healthy society has always been measured by how it cares for the disadvantaged.

I think one of the important things that's happened in the course of the century is that life expectancy has doubled.

In the developed world, income inequality within the country is the most important determinant of health standards and life expectancy.

I don't believe medical discoveries are doing much to advance human life. As fast as we create ways to extend it we are inventing ways to shorten it.

Modern medical advances have helped millions of people live longer, healthier lives. We owe these improvements to decades of investment in medical research.

The carrying power of a bridge is not the average strength of the pillars, but the strength of the weakest pillar. I have always believed that you do not measure the health of a society by GNP but by the condition of its worst off.

When I thought about having the greatest impact with my life, I thought about all the times people lose loved ones because diseases weren't detected early enough. I thought, 'I can play a role there.'

The NHS should be proactively using substantial resources across government to intervene and try to deliver positive improvements in people's standards of living.

It is education that will arm us with the tools that will enable us to succeed and put a stop to the rising rates of preventable death.

The U.S. routinely ranks lower than other countries in health outcomes such as infant mortality.

We should be concerned not only about the health of individual patients, but also the health of our entire society.

While eliminating smallpox and curtailing cholera added decades of life to vast populations, cures for the chronic diseases of old age cannot have the same effect on life expectancy. A cure for cancer would be miraculous and welcome, but it would lead to only a three-year increase in life expectancy at birth.

I think that the discoveries of antibiotics and vaccines have contributed to the improvement of the quality of life, making it possible to prevent contagious diseases.

One could look over the past century and ask oneself, has the increased longevity been good, bad or indifferent?

In 1820, the average lifespan was just 26 years. Twenty-six years!

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Public health service should be as fully organized and as universally incorporated into our governmental system as is public education. The returns are a thousand fold in economic benefits, and infinitely more in reduction of suffering and promotion of human happiness.

Medical statistics will be our standard of measurement: we will weigh life for life and see where the dead lie thicker, among the workers or among the privileged

The reduction of the death rate is the principal statistical expression and index of human social progress.

… it seems to me that there is little knowledge of the ordinary rules of sanitation in many of the rural districts of the South in which we have been. The same holds true of some of the poorer districts in the cities. We all know that you can become immune to almost any type of infection, but some people die in the process unnecessarily.

The reality is that life expectancy has not improved for everyone. In fact, in some cases, life expectancy is actually decreasing.

I work with poor kids. I work in the fight against HIV.

If anything, the genuine human struggles in 'Sicko' raise questions about our society that run much deeper than what passes for political discourse today. Why does such a rich nation let people suffer and die without health care?