Tom Frieden

“It is the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently.”

“The bottom line is, if you're pregnant, don't travel to an area where Zika is spreading.”

“If we vaccinate well, if we increase those vaccination rates, we can stop measles just as we stopped it before.”

“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 bottom line is that Ebola is hard to treat, and when the first patient ever with Ebola came to the United States, we thought the guidelines would protect the health care workers.”

“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.”

“As director of the CDC, one of the best parts of my job is announcing good news.”

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

“We want people to take responsibility for how healthy they are, and we want to help them live longer, healthier lives.”

“CDC is supporting community efforts by establishing competitive grants to support local programs to help individuals and families to get healthy and stay healthy.”

“The way we work in public health is, we make the best recommendations and decisions based on the best available data.”

“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.”

“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 think we didn't recognize how hard it would be to care for someone with Ebola who was desperately ill in the U.S., and how much hands-on nursing care there would be, and we didn't expect two nurses to get infected.”

“Some hospitals screen all ICU patients and isolate those with MRSA, a process that can be challenging for both caregivers and patients.”

“We continue to recommend flu vaccine as the single best way to protect yourself against the flu. The vaccine will protect against strains covered in the vaccine, and it may have some effectiveness in the drifted strains.”

“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.”

“Health care providers can follow guidelines for responsible painkiller prescribing and talk with their patients about the risks and benefits of taking prescription painkillers.”

“Using prescription drug monitoring programs is an important step in identifying patients who may be improperly using prescription painkillers.”

“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.”