Martin J. Blaser Quotes & Sayings

In 1850, one in four American babies died before his or her first birthday. — Martin J. Blaser

Microbes are invisible to our naked eye, with a few exceptions that reinforce the rule. Millions can fit into the eye of a needle. But if you were to gather them all up, not only would they outnumber all the mice, whales, humans, birds, insects, worms, and trees combined - indeed all of the visible life-forms we are familiar with on Earth - they would outweigh them as well. Think about that for a moment. Invisible microbes comprise the sheer bulk of the Earth's biomass, more than the mammals and reptiles, all the fish in the sea, the forests. — Martin J. Blaser

As long as amoxicillin is given to our children who have pneumococci in their noses and throats, whether harmless or not, antibiotic resistance is inevitable. — Martin J. Blaser

We can pay now to prevent or we can pay later to treat. — Martin J. Blaser

Pathologists and physicians need to recognize that "inflammation" of the stomach is normal. — Martin J. Blaser

Along with better training, pediatricians need better pay. Paradoxically, physicians involved in the primary care of our children - the doctors on the front lines who receive tens of thousands of visits every day from parents and their children - are among the lowest paid of all physicians in the United States. Something is wrong with our system when the doctor who performs a brief diagnostic procedure - some form of X-ray, for example, or a fifteen-minute operation - is paid many times more than the doctors making crucial decisions about our children's health. — Martin J. Blaser

Bacterial specialization is a thrilling and largely unexplored realm in uncovering what makes each of us distinct in terms of — Martin J. Blaser

We think that cutting routine office visits to twenty minutes, fifteen minutes, even ten minutes will save money when in fact, with less time for doctors to examine and less time to think, we are incurring far greater costs through excessive testing and needless treatment. — Martin J. Blaser

I do not wish to ban antibiotics or Cesarian sections any more than anyone would suggest banning automobiles. I ask only that they be used more wisely and that antidotes to their worst side effects be developed. The truth is always obvious in retrospect. How could people really have thought that the sun revolves around Earth or that Earth is flat? Yet dogma are powerful and to their adherents infallible. — Martin J. Blaser