Michael Specter Quotes

Smallpox is the only human infectious disease ever eradicated by science.

Smallpox, which spreads by respiration and kills roughly one in three of those infected, took hundreds of millions of lives during a recorded history dating to Pharaonic Egypt. The last case was in 1978, and the disease was declared eradicated on May 8, 1980.

The Carter Center has the only existing international taskforce on disease eradication. Which means a total elimination of a disease on the face of the Earth. In the history of the world, there's only been one disease eradicated: smallpox. The second disease, I think, is gonna be guinea worm.

I think when smallpox was eliminated, the whole world got pretty excited about that because it's just such a dramatic success.

I think that protecting children at the age where they're most vulnerable against diseases that are highly contagious is prudent.

I believe we have to nip Ebola in the bud before it spreads through Africa and to other countries.

Epidemiologists study patterns in order to combat infection. Stories about epidemics follow patterns, too. Stories aren't often deadly, but they can be virulent: spreading fast, weakening resistance, wreaking havoc.

We have to keep up our guard. We won't get the risk of Ebola to zero in the U.S. until we stop it in West Africa. And Ebola is hard to fight. It requires intensity. It requires speed and flexibility.

Historical records show that smallpox was a human scourge for thousands of years. The virus produces high fever, severe back pain and scarring eruptions of flat red spots on the skin that turn into pustules and then into scabs - a two-week process during which the disease is highly contagious.

Strong health and disease surveillance systems halt epidemics that take lives, disrupt economies, and pose global health security threats.

You'd see little shallow graves, lined up, one after the other - babies. That's what happens when measles goes through a nutritionally deficient community. It's a horrible disease, and it spreads incredibly efficiently.

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.

Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously, precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.

The fact that I was fortunate enough to escape contagion, in spite of frequent, sometimes daily contacts with the disease, was because I soon guessed how it spread.

When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic.

As medical research continues and technology enables new breakthroughs, there will be a day when malaria and most all major deadly diseases are eradicated on Earth.

A more effective international disease surveillance system is essential for global security both against a bioterrorist attack or a naturally occurring disease.

A pandemic influenza would mean widespread infection essentially throughout every region of the world.

Pneumonia is a disease that often flies under the radar of not just the public but even the global health community. It kills more children under 5 years old every year than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.

Polio's pretty special because once you get an eradication, you no longer have to spend money on it; it's just there as a gift for the rest of time.

Smallpox was the worst disease in history. It killed more people than all the wars in history.

In today's world, new infections and diseases can spread across the country and even across the world in a matter of days, or even hours, making early detection critical.

Ebola is a nasty disease to get. It's scary. But as a weapon, it is probably not likely. Ebola is a difficult malady to weaponize and deliver efficiently.

Now, you might think of flu as just a really bad cold, but it can be a death sentence. Every year, 36,000 people in the United States die of seasonal flu. In the developing world, the data is much sketchier, but the death toll is almost certainly higher.

We saw in 2003 the beginnings of an outbreak of an illness called SARS. SARS ended up killing 800 people which is a significant number of deaths, but nowhere near as high as it could have been.