Quotessence
Home / Topics / Public Health Quotes

Public Health Quotes

Browse 235 quotes about Public Health.

Related topics

Public Health Quotes

“I am sorry for you tonight, Mr. President. You are facing one of the greatest decisions of your career. Upon what you decide depends on whether or not you are going to get your canal. If you fall back upon the old methods of sanitation you will fail, just as the French failed. If you back up Dr. Gorgas and his ideas, and you let him make his campaign against mosquitoes, then you get your canal. I can only give you my advice; you must decide for yourself. There is only one way of controlling yellow fever and malaria, and that is the eradication of the mosquitoes. But it is your canal; you must do the choosing and you must choose tonight whether you are going to build that canal.”

“If people know the vaccines which are available, and understand their benefits and risks, they will come of their own volition and take the vaccines themselves or request them for their children. There should be no compulsion by the state to force vaccinations of any kind. If these vaccines are worthy of merit and consideration, and the people are given enough information concerning their risks and benefits, then the people will seek them out of their own accord and be able to decide whether or not the vaccinations are right for themselves and their families... ...The people of the United States are intelligent people. Provide the information and allow them to decide. Vaccination should always be a choice, and never a mandate.”

“It is almost impossible for contemporaries to judge the true value of discoveries, or to give the proper position to the men of their own time who make these discoveries. The Surgeon-General of the Public Health Service expected the greatest results to flow from his commission of medical officers, but the conclusions of the Board turned out to be all wrong, while he did not notice the report from his own subordinate, Dr. H. R. Carter, which turned out to be pure gold and was one of the great steps in establishing the true method of the transmission of Yellow Fever.”

“I think more people would stay active in church, if they didn't get so offended by the actions of members. Sometimes, you have to view places of worship as free mental health clinics, in order to deal with the piety or hypocrisy. Parishioners are a wounded souls in various stages of healing, who are being treated by angels, with credentials from the University of Hard Knocks. Some take their therapy seriously and try to practice what they learned. Yet, others down the sacrament like a healing dose of Prozac, with no other effort required. When you keep this in mind, you won't feel so annoyed by the personalities you encounter.”

“With drug use related harms, explanatory models are often presented as predictive tools, even though they ‘are [rarely if ever] predictive of consequent behavior’ or outcomes. Hence, we feel confident in asserting at outset, that prohibition based approaches in drug policy lack a sound basis in empirical research (despite sounding logical, i.e. remove drugs or the means of their production and less drugs will be available to users, thus minimising or eliminating harm), and are not animated by well-defined goals, goals that are not only consistent with the ethical and humanitarian aims of public health policy in general, but also with the fundamental principles of democracy) such as empowering or enabling those best placed to act, but by beliefs, assumptions, hypotheses and expectations.”

“Doubt is crucial in science—in the version we call curiosity or healthy skepticism, it drives science forward—but it also makes science vulnerable to misrepresentation, because it is easy to take uncertainties out of context and create the impression that everything is unresolved. This was the tobacco industry's key insight: that you could use normal scientific uncertainty to undermine the status of actual scientific knowledge." ...Individual clinicians cannot single-handedly combat this kind of antiscience, a climate that has only been fostered by some political and religious leaders and by the social media. But at the very least, we can make our patients aware of the forces at play and the mind games that such merchants of doubt employ.”

“If you take the data from the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response tracker index and plot it against health outcomes, in other words, if you look to see if there's any apparent connection between the severity of lockdowns and health outcomes, you find no connection at all. The distribution is entirely random. As future ages look back on the 21st century, our "public health" establishment will be a laughingstock, dressed in white coats and holding clipboards, but prescribing leeches and rain dances and human sacrifice and calling it "science".”

“Up to 7% or more' of newborn infants are given antibiotics within the first three days after birth and almost all of them will receive a hep-B shot within the first day or two of life. This is a bad combination. To protect them from sepsis is understandable, but it is obviously overdone. This is another reason why hep-B vaccines should not be given routinely to all newborns. Toxins within the hep B vaccine plus antibiotics equals potentially adverse outcomes for these infants which can easily be avoided. After taking antibiotics yeast in the body can grow out of control, causing a variety of problems. Then to make things worse, we add more yeast into the infant’s body with the hep B vaccine, which contains brewer’s yeast. The combination of hep B vaccine and antibiotics directly after birth is not a good idea.”

“Solution #2. PRACTICE INFORMED CONSENT WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Parents and their children should not be refused service by any pediatric office due to their personal beliefs on vaccinations, nor should they be kicked out of these offices for refusal to take any vaccines or by not complying with following the CDC’s recommended vaccine schedule. The doctors should be practicing informed consent, educating parents and children on vaccines and their benefits and risks, and allowing them to decide whether or not they wish to vaccinate. Conflicts of interest should be removed from these offices, and families should never be forced to “follow the vaccine schedule, and keep up with the vaccines, or find a new pediatrician.” The pediatrician’s job should be to inform and advise, and not to use excessive force or pressure to promote vaccinations. Who is serving who? Parents should have the ultimate authority to decide if and when vaccines should be given to their children.”

“Solution #3. PARENTS SHOULD DECIDE WHAT IS RIGHT FOR THEIR CHILDREN. No drugs, vaccines, or medical procedures of any kind should be given or done to any child without the knowledge, approval, and consent of the parents or guardians of that child. No federal funding for children’s services within individual states for foster care or adoption should be allowed, as this violates the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, and encourages medical kidnapping by the states. Medical kidnapping by the state and their children’s health services due to a difference of professional medical opinion in health treatments for children should be disallowed. Doctors make mistakes. Therefore, one doctor’s diagnosis or opinion should never be considered enough evidence to take a child away from their parents. The parents/guardians, along with the advice of their own healthcare providers and not the state, shall determine what the acceptable treatment, if any, for any health condition present in their children should be. Parental rights and determination regarding children’s health treatment in cooperation with a licensed healthcare provider supersedes any local medical or governmental authority. This recent movement to take away the rights and responsibilities from parents or their guardians must stop. It makes no sense. Children are not old enough or mature enough to make decisions which could affect the rest of their lives. They are children, and do not have the experience to make such decisions. This is a parent’s job. Parents are the ones responsible for their children, not the state, the school, or the doctor’s office. If others do these things without parental consent or knowledge and the child is killed or injured permanently from medical treatments, procedures, drugs, or vaccines, then who will be responsible for burying the child, or taking care of the disabled child for the remainder of their lives? It is the parents. Therefore, parents should have the ultimate authority over their children and their healthcare until the children become adults, at which time they can then make their own decisions for their lives and their healthcare options. The exception to this rule is if the children (<18 years old) are emancipated from their parents and/or are living apart from their parents and are responsible for their own welfare.”

“Colonists were grateful for the perceived blessing of massive depopulation of indigenous people by infectious disease. A 1643 publication titled New England First Fruits conveys that message clearly, numbering smallpox first among a long list of divine gifts. In their minds, God cleared a path for their progress, and the chosen implement was contagion.”

“What I came to appreciate— what I hope to communicate here— is that measles isn't just one more childhood disease. It is the quintessential human pathogen. Measles does more than cause fever and a rash. It teaches us about ourselves— our capacity to learn, remember, and forget. It moves through crowds at astonishing speed. It has shaped and continues to shape our history. We have a vaccine to prevent measles, one that is battle-proven to be able to eliminate the disease from whole countries, even continents. However, what we've accomplished with that vaccine isn't just an example of scientific triumph, as the persistence of measles also provides evidence for our ongoing failures to reckon with poverty, inequity, racism, and the myriad legacies of colonialism.”

“Solution #1. ELIMINATE PAYOFFS IN CLINICS TO PROMOTE VACCINATIONS. It should be illegal for doctors to accept bonuses or other incentives from insurance or pharmaceutical companies for vaccinating patients. This practice is clearly a conflict of interest. When you take your child to a doctor, you want them to focus on your child and their health, and not on a yearend bonus some other company is paying to push vaccines. These bonuses/kickbacks provide a monetary incentive to the doctor and their office not related to the patient’s health, which is clearly a conflict of interest, and should be illegal. Without this bonus/kickback in their minds, perhaps the doctors can get back in the business of simply taking care of their patients, answering their questions, and providing them with better overall healthcare. If the pediatric office has no money dangling over them in the form of bonuses/kickbacks, then there should be no incentive to bar entrance to any family who wants to receive healthcare, unless the office is so full that they cannot accommodate new patients. This taking away of the bonus/kickback money will remove prejudice and bias against those who do not want to follow the recommended vaccine schedule, or who question the safety of the vaccines. And thereby, all patients will receive equal healthcare service under the law without bias. After all, isn’t this, shouldn’t this be the goal?”

“Everyone is so locked into the current way of doing things, they never see the larger picture or other, more responsible and efficient possibilities. A REAL economy is always wanting to limit consumption/manufacturing as much as possible by assuring the strategically "best" and "adaptable" productions at all times, while keeping balance with human needs and public health. It is a total shift in intent than what we have today.”

“We lose eight children and teenagers to gun violence every day. If a mysterious virus suddenly started killing eight of our children every day, America would mobilize teams of doctors and public health officials. We would move heaven and earth until we found a way to protect our children. But not with gun violence.”

“With climate change and health crises rightfully receiving international attention, the time has come to focus on hunger as a top priority. WHO regards hunger and malnutrition as the gravest threat to public health, and climate change threatens to further destabilise already fragile food-production systems.”

“It ought to concern every person, because it is a debasement of our common humanity. It ought to concern every community, because it tears at our social fabric. It ought to concern every business, because it distorts markets. It ought to concern every nation, because it endangers public health and fuels violence and organized crime. I’m talking about the injustice, the outrage, of human trafficking, which must be called by its true name - modern slavery.”

“Time for a new business model for the 21st century. For starters, retire that outdated and creepy clown. You can be a true leader by stop exploiting children. I guarantee the millennials market you’re after will reward you for it. I know the public health world will applaud you, starting with myself.”

“Every strategy for real social change - land reform, education, public health, the equitable distribution of natural resources ... - has been cleverly, cunningly, and consistently scuttled and rendered ineffectual by those castes and that class of people which has a stranglehold on the political process.”

“The power of the state to impose restraints and burdens upon persons and property in conservation and promotion of the public health, good order, and prosperity is a power originally and always belonging to the states, not surrendered to them by the general government, nor directly restrained by the constitution of the United States, and essentially exclusive.”

“Depression has been called the worlds number one public health problem. In fact, depression is so widespread it is considered the common cold of psychiatric disturbances. But there is a grim difference between depression and a cold. Depression can kill you.”

“I was a teenager, we were pretty much fully indoctrinated, thanks to sexual scare tactics. I remember so many public-health commercials with a B-actor in a fake alley background warning us to use protection or telling us the only real safe choice was abstinence. We were highly frightened of sex from day one. There was no free-swinging '90s.”