19 Quotes by Georges Benjamin

No one should fool anyone that this is going to happen overnight ... because the health system is so complex.

If we do all this work, and there's no pandemic, you still have 36,000 people die every year of seasonal flu, and you could make a big dent in that. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I think the overall response was deplorable in terms of the timing and there's plenty of blame go around, but I think the overall public health response was heroic.

People are eating out of (nonworking) refrigerators. They think it's good because it's still a little cool.

People are eating out of (non-working) refrigerators. They think it's good because it's still a little cool.

Nations are dealing with this on their own because of fears of an impact on trade. We continue to see situations where nations are not as aggressive as they could be off the bat.

The question is: what happens with our existing funding? We've already had $100 million in reductions in public-health grants in the president's 2006 budget request. Public health is still in a big hole.

What often happens in a situation like this is people latch onto very concrete things, like buying vaccine. That's not readiness. That's stockpiling. We have got to have first responders who know what their role is, people who can get shots into people's arms quickly, and hospitals who can handle patients.

The threat is very serious and will only increase as the days go by without the waters receding.