Michael Specter Quotes

Lyme disease has become a fast epidemic worldwide. I am determined to help find a cure and figure out a way to share knowledge with the millions of people struggling with this debilitating disease.

Not enough people know what Lyme disease is and the dangers of being bitten by an insect.

I know runners who have suffered a tick bite and ended up with Lyme disease. I'll take an angry moose any day.

I believe evidence is overwhelming that chronic Lyme is a terrible, overwhelming disease, and we need to find ways to treat this. To say otherwise is an inaccurate and unscientific opinion.

Lyme disease is the most commonly reported tick-borne illness in the United States, and the incidence is growing rapidly. In 2009, the C.D.C. reported thirty-eight thousand cases, three times more than in 1991. Most researchers agree that the true number of infections is five to ten times higher.

If left untreated, Lyme disease can be crippling, yet it is a difficult illness to contract: a tick needs to attach itself to your body for at least twenty-four hours. Even then, two weeks worth of commonly prescribed antibiotics will kill the bacterium.

Since the first large Zika outbreak ever recognized, in 2007, the CDC has had boots on the ground responding. Our laboratories have developed a test that can confirm Zika in the first week of illness or in a sample from an affected child.

The malaria parasite has been killing children and sapping the strength of whole populations for tens of thousands of years. It is impossible to calculate the harm malaria has done to the world.

When I came to University of California, San Francisco to work on infectious disease, I looked around to different options, and malaria was particularly interesting and fascinating to me. It's amazing that after 100 years of study of this little parasite, we've not been able to effectively control it.

The belief is growing on me that the disease is communicated by the bite of the mosquito... She always injects a small quantity of fluid with her bite - what if the parasites get into the system in this manner.

Malaria in Africa did not come from bad governance. It came from bad mosquitoes.

The mosquito has killed more people than anything else in history.

It’s not the mosquitoes who spread the disease [Zika]. Mosquitoes don’t travel more than 500 yards from where they are born. It’s the people. They travel.

Like SARS or Ebola, COVID-19 seems to be another disease that has jumped from the animal kingdom to the human and then traveled quickly because of trains, cars, airplanes, and people clustering in public places.

By recognizing that infectious disease is not some faraway exotic issue but a global problem, and by sharing the responsibility for its prevention, diagnosis, and control, the whole world will be a lot safer.

I will continue to pave the way and share my health journey with the world until I find a cure and proper diagnostic testing for this silent killer called Lyme disease.

Malaria has long been a devastating and life-threatening global epidemic disease in human history.

Lyme disease is very debilitating. Being from the East Coast I know Lyme disease is quite common and may lay dormant and may produce flu-like symptoms, as well as neurological issues.

As soon as a disease is diagnosed, we still need someone to deliver the care.

The border patrol gave us a list of the diseases that they're concerned about, and Ebola was one of those.

I remembered reading about a disease called Leishmaniasis, which matched my symptoms. I'd always thought it was an old wives' tale - a sand fly bite that eats your flesh. But when I looked on the internet and saw pictures of people who had it, their lesions looked like mine.

The more we know about Lyme, the more we can do to treat patients and educate families to stop the spread of this debilitating disease.

I will continue to work in Congress to support Lyme disease research and education through funding for the National Institutes of Health and the CDC.

Early in my career, I was galvanized by a disease that ravaged my country and many others around the world: malaria.

Trash is something you get rid of - or disease. I'm not something you get rid of.