H. L. Mencken Quotes

In the country parishes where vaccination [for smallpox] is not the custom, with no physician near, where the colored children are poorly fed and clad, and much exposed, they sicken, die, and are buried, without a record of their numbers. It is respectfully suggested that an order declaring vaccination to be a military necessity, would save many lives among these poor people. If physicians and surgeons were required to vaccinate all who apply, at a moderate public charge, and all were required to apply, it might arrest the ravages of this dreadful scourge

I loved clinical practice, but in public health, you can impact more than one person at a time. The whole society is your patient.

The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations.

In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.

Health care is vital to all of us some of the time, but public health is vital to all of us all of the time

A focus on people's health and well-being must be the core of family planning research and policy. This may seem self-evident, but the realities of program implementation in third world countries has often shown that the health and well-being of individuals is not a priority.

Modern 'public health' initiatives have moved well beyond what could reasonably be classified as public goods. Today, government undertakes all sorts of policies in the name of public health that are aimed at regulating personal behavior.

I hope that some day the practice of producing cowpox in human beings will spread over the world - when that day comes, there will be no more smallpox.

Even before ObamaCare, the government took care of the bottom 5 or 10 percent of the public who were on Medicaid.

People don't trust the federal government as it relates to health care.

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.'

Vaccines are the most cost-effective health care interventions there are. A dollar spent on a childhood vaccination not only helps save a life, but greatly reduces spending on future healthcare.

You don't have to vaccinate every man, woman and child in the country if you have a couple of cases of smallpox cropping up.

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.

Keeping children alive and free of disease is not a political issue and cannot be put into a partisan box.

Miriam Were has made outstanding contributions to public health in the developing world. She brings basic medical services to women and children in East Africa.

Treatment without prevention is simply unsustainable.

I don't think President Bush is doing anything at all about Aids. In fact, I'm not sure he even knows how to spell Aids.

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.

In the 19th century, smallpox was widely considered a disease of filth, which meant that it was largely understood to be a disease of the poor. According to filth theory, any number of contagious diseases were caused by bad air that had been made foul by excrement or rot.

We give our kids vaccinations. That's a biological enhancement that's considered not just acceptable but actually admirable.

If smallpox were a threat just to individuals, then it could be left up to individuals to decide whether or not they want to protect themselves.

Nobody spends any money on smallpox unless they worry about a bio-terrorist recreating it.

Making sure that people have access to preventive medicine for the first time ever as a nation? That's a big deal.

I think we need more community health programs and we need to develop programs that are low-cost.