Laurie Garrett

“Ebola haunted Zaire because of corruption and political repression. The virus had no secret powers, nor was it unusually contagious. For centuries Ebola had lurked in the jungles of central Africa. Its emergence into human populations required the special assistance of humanity's greatest vices : greed, corruption, arrogance, tyranny, and callousness.”

“'Contagion' should serve as a wake-up call not only about the germs, but perhaps more importantly about the frailty of governance, nationally and worldwide.”

“Without equity, pandemic battles will fail. Viruses will simply recirculate, and perhaps undergo mutations or changes that render vaccines useless, passing through the unprotected populations of the planet.”

“What public health really is is a trust. That's why I used the term 'Betrayal of Trust' as the title of my book. It's a trust between the government and the people.”

“At no time in history have we succeeded in making, in a timely fashion, a specific vaccine for more than 260 million people.”

“There is no governing structure for a pandemic, and little more than vague political pressure to ensure limited access to life-sparing tools and medicines for more than half the world population.”

“In all, 86 per cent of the increased life expectancy was due to decreases in infectious diseases. And the bulk of the decline in infectious disease deaths occurred prior to the age of antibiotics. Less than 4 per cent of the total improvement in life expectancy since 1700s can be credited to twentieth-century advances in medical care.”

“Most Americans think that public health is services for poor people, and since most Americans hate poor people and want all poor people's services destroyed, they hate public health.”