Laurie Garrett

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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