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.
— Tom Frieden
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.
If we vaccinate well, if we increase those vaccination rates, we can stop measles just as we stopped it before.
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.
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.
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.
E-cigarettes are a tobacco product.
The way Zika spreads is primarily through the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito in places that don't have screens and air-conditioning.
Congress did the right thing with Ebola. They funded us to protect Americans and keep us safer.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Know that the tiger mosquito - Aedes albopictus - sometimes spreads viruses that spread like Zika, so it may be able to spread Zika.
The bottom line is, if you're pregnant, don't travel to an area 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.
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.
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.
People have a misconception that the tobacco epidemic is a thing of the past. Tobacco still kills more Americans than any other cause.
