Sandra Shewry Quotations

We are facing an epidemic of obesity that threatens the public health of California and the rest of the nation. We must improve our children's nutrition and level of physical activity if we are going to reverse this trend.

While we cannot absolutely prevent a pandemic, we can mitigate its impact.

An influenza pandemic could be the greatest public health challenge of our time.

A large part of our planning effort, and something we're putting a very high priority on this year, is working with our partners in the counties to document what capacity do we have to bring up our health-care delivery system, to exceed the capacities we have today. And to come back to the Legislature and to the governor and say this is where we see the gaps and these are the targeted changes we need.

The biggest challenge is getting people to think the unthinkable.

In California alone, scientists estimate a pandemic could cause approximately 35 percent of the population to become ill.