Scott Gottlieb Quotes
Confronting a dangerous pandemic requires containing spread wherever it is reasonably possible. Sensible measures such as universal masking, testing and widespread and rapid contact tracing can help. The best way to protect the vulnerable is to try to protect everyone.
Gottlieb, Scott. Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic. Harper, 2021.
This is a very interesting historical quotation. The House and the Senate closed the galleries because America was in the midst of the most fatal outbreak of disease in its history. It was the Flu, but that year it was a particularly virulent strain—the first time the world had seen the H1N1 strain. There was no vaccine then and about 100 million people died worldwide. In America more than ½ million people died. It was the worst Pandemic in history—it killed more people than the Black Plague even. The medical authorities did realize that the flu was spread from person to person but other than keep people from congregating in groups as in the Congressional galleries, there was little they knew about what to do.
He is in charge of collecting and deploying the funds donated for infectious diseases from countries throughout the world. Each nation has its own budget cycle and the public health officials have to plan and act as soon as they learn that an epidemic is breaking out. The viruses and bacteria grow when they grow, not when budgets have planned for them.
Scott Gottlieb is an American physician and investor who served as the 23rd commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 2017 until April 2019. He is presently a resident fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a member of the board of directors of drug maker Pfizer, Inc, a member of the board of directors of Illumina, Inc., and a contributor to the cable financial news network CNBC. Before becoming FDA commissioner, he was a clinical assistant professor at New York University School of Medicine, the FDA deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs, a venture partner with New Enterprise Associates, a member of the policy board of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, a senior official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and a member of the Federal Health Information Technology Policy Committee, which advises the United States Department of Health and Human Services on healthcare information technology. He was previously a resident fellow at AEI from 2007 to 2017 prior to joining the FDA as commissioner in May 2017.
