Dr. Gerberding Health Quotations

Local public health agencies are the front line in all of this. Preparedness, at its heart, is a local phenomenon.

Until we have electronic health records, we're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, by Mom's recall sometimes.

Currently, fewer than half of health care workers get vaccinated for flu each year. When people who work in hospitals and health care facilities don't get vaccinated, they can pose a serious risk to their patients.

We've got to get a vaccine supply that we can count on. We've got to get more and better antiviral drugs. And we've got to have every single link in our public health system as strong as it can be so we can detect this problem and do the things at the local community level that we need to do to save lives.

Cigarette smoking continues to impose substantial health and financial costs on individuals and society. If we want to significantly reduce the toll in this decade, we must provide the 32 million smokers who say they want to quit with the tools and support to do so successfully.