I loved clinical practice, but in public health, you can impact more than one person at a time. The whole society is your patient.
Tom Frieden
Vaccines and antibiotics have made many infectious diseases a thing of the past; we've come to expect that public health and modern science can conquer all microbes. But nature is a formidable adversary.
Our progress against malaria is impressive. But vigilance remains a critical ingredient to protect the health of all people.
Thanks to malaria elimination efforts in United States in the 1940s, most people in the U.S. today have never had any direct contact with the disease, and most doctors have never seen a case. That success means it's easy to have a relaxed attitude about protecting ourselves.
The importance in what we're seeing in countries around the world is a poorly regulated and poorly functioning private sector using irrational and ineffective medications that result in the emergence of drug-resistance tuberculosis. What we've done is begun a program to rapidly improve infection control in places that are treating TB patients.
Vaccination is the single most important step people can take to protect themselves from influenza.
Physical activity - even if you don't lose an ounce, you'll live longer, feel healthier and be less likely to get cancer, heart disease, stroke and arthritis. It's the closest thing we have to a wonder drug.
Mosquito control in the United States is very much a local and state activity. Some states have excellent programs, other states not so much. It's one of the reasons it's so urgent to identify and spread best practices to try and track and reduce mosquito populations.
Stopping TB requires a government program that functions every day of the year, and that's hard in certain parts of the world. And partly it's because of who tuberculosis affects: It tends to affect the poor and disenfranchised most.
When my son was little, he asked me: 'Daddy, which is worser, sugar or salt?' I still don't know the answer.
If we vaccinate well, if we increase those vaccination rates, we can stop measles just as we stopped it before.
What works most effectively for quelling disease outbreaks like Ebola is not quarantining huge populations. What works is focusing on and isolating the sick and those in direct contact with them as they are at highest risk of infection. This strategy worked with SARS, and it worked during the H1N1 flu pandemic.
The Zika virus invades and disrupts the development of the fetal brain, but the effects on the brains of infants and young children are unknown.
CDC is supporting community efforts by establishing competitive grants to support local programs to help individuals and families to get healthy and stay healthy.
Cigars, cigarettes, and hookah tobacco are all smoked tobacco - addictive and deadly. We need effective action to protect our kids from struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine.
People traveling to malaria-prone areas can protect themselves by taking steps such as taking antimalarial drugs, using insect repellent, sleeping under insecticide-treated bed-nets, and wearing protective clothing.
Between 2000 and 2010, malaria mortality rates fell by 26 percent around the world. According to the latest World Health Organization estimates, there were about 219 million cases of malaria in 2010 and an estimated 660,000 deaths.
Zika is spread by mosquitos. They are tough to control. It will bite four or five people at one blood meal. They can breed in the amount of water it takes to fill up a bottle cap or, theoretically, even a drop of water. You have to get rid of maybe 90% of them or more before you protect people.
As director of the CDC, one of the best parts of my job is announcing good news.
More than 50 million people around the world died during the 1918-1919 flu pandemic. That's why we have epidemiologists all over the world tracking whether new strains of flu emerge.
Women should use pain medication only as directed and talk with their doctor about all drugs they're taking, including over-the-counter medications. Store prescription drugs in a secure place and properly dispose of them as soon as treatment is over. And never share prescription drugs with anyone else.
I love... cheesecake in New York. I love whatever is sweet.
Pregnant women who are in places where Zika is spreading should do everything they can to avoid mosquito bites. And we, as a society, need to do everything we can to control Zika. That means learning more about it; that means controlling mosquitoes more effectively. That means achieving a vaccine.
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.
In addition to pain, disability, and disfigurement, lymphatic filariasis carries a heavy social cost. Those disfigured by the disease are often shunned. Women are often rejected by their families. Both men and women can have difficulty finding jobs.
To me, as a physician, when 1.78 million of our high school kids have tried an e-cigarette, and a lot of them are using them regularly ... that's like watching someone harm hundreds of thousands of children.
Haiti is not an easy place to fight disease, even in the best of times. That was true even before a devastating earthquake ravaged Haiti's capital and largest city, Port-au-Prince, in 2010.
Ebola so scary and so unfamiliar, it's really important to outline what the facts are and that we know how to control it. We control it by traditional public health measures. We do that, and Ebola goes away.
It is remarkable how surprising Zika has been. This is the first time we have had a mosquito-borne infection that can cause a devastating birth defect.
We do prioritize addressing MDR-TB. We have done that for more than 20 years; that's why we've been able to drastically reduce U.S. cases of MDR-TB.
Reducing MRSA infections is critical because these bacteria are difficult to treat and are common in healthcare settings, especially among ICU (intensive care unit) patients.
Health is correlated with quality of life. If you get regular physical activity, have social connections, control your cholesterol, keep your blood pressure at a normal level, don't smoke - these things can make an enormous difference not only in how long you live, but how much you enjoy your life in those years.
Health care providers can follow guidelines for responsible painkiller prescribing and talk with their patients about the risks and benefits of taking prescription painkillers.
MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is an important cause of healthcare-associated infections.
Flu can be serious, and it kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. Vaccination is easier and more convenient than ever, so get yourself and your family protected.
Know that the tiger mosquito - Aedes albopictus - sometimes spreads viruses that spread like Zika, so it may be able to spread Zika.
The way we work in public health is, we make the best recommendations and decisions based on the best available data.
I eat a lot of fruit because if I fill up on strawberries or an apple, then I'll have one small piece of cheesecake rather than two big pieces.
Some hospitals screen all ICU patients and isolate those with MRSA, a process that can be challenging for both caregivers and patients.
Tobacco marketing often reaches children and youth and entices them to start using tobacco while they are still at an impressionable age. Nearly four out of five high school cigarette smokers will become adult smokers, even if they intend to quit in a few years. By the time they want to quit, they're hooked.
From all the available evidence, the body has an excellent immune response to Zika. Therefore, once you get it once, you will never get it again.
E-cigarettes are a tobacco product.
People have a misconception that the tobacco epidemic is a thing of the past. Tobacco still kills more Americans than any other cause.
I've treated so many adults who are desperate - desperate - to get off tobacco. They all started as kids. I see the industry getting another generation of our kids addicted.
Over and over, nature shows that it's a really tough adversary. That's why it's important that we invest in laboratories, disease detectives, research, mosquito control, the public health system around the world to find, stop, track, prevent health threats.
Controlling mosquitos is tough. It's not quick; it's not easy. It requires work day in and day out to track where mosquitos are and to apply safely the appropriate mosquito control methods.
Every health threat has a different nature and characteristic and appropriate response. Zika is a particular risk to pregnant women who reside in or thinking of traveling to places where Zika is spreading.
It's understandable that when something new comes out that's unfamiliar, scary, and has severe outcomes, it gets a lot of media attention. In fact, the Zika outbreak is unprecedented. We've never before identified a mosquito-borne infection that can cause fetal malformations.
The bottom line is, if you're pregnant, don't travel to an area where Zika is spreading.
Congress did the right thing with Ebola. They funded us to protect Americans and keep us safer.
