Science is simply a powerful way of understanding what's real and what isn't, what's true and what's not. It can help us determine what works, what doesn't, for whom, and under what circumstances.

Preventing cardiovascular disease can help free up critical resources for treating HIV/AIDS and other illnesses.

When the U.S. claims the right to invade any country unilaterally and then defines a country like Iran or North Korea as 'evil,' then it is a rational response for these countries to develop nuclear weapons as the only military deterrent to invasion. We create what we most fear.

Too much power in any institution tends to stifle innovation.

I am a person of faith who believes deeply in the right to exercise religious beliefs.

I've always been interested in the industrialization of our food; it's been an issue for me from an environmental and animal rights and human health perspective.

Scaling up community health workers and health system capacity must be a fundamental component of our efforts to achieve universal health coverage, which will be my topmost priority if elected as Director-General.

For me, writing is an experience. It's an exercise in which I want to discover myself by taking my characters to the edges of human experience, to the edges of themselves and then, asking certain questions - about love, what does it mean to love? What's beauty? What is true beauty? What does it mean to be insane - crazy?