Dr. Francisco López Antuñano, former Director, Communicable Diseases
"No one can have a full life if he does not have health. It is the principal resource of life itself... I believe that one of the most important missions of the Organization is precisely to promote the value of health and the appreciation of every human being. Health is the greatest resource that human beings have to develop their life as a whole."
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Dr. Myron Wegman, former Secretary-General
"It wasn't until shortly before the beginnings of the 20th century that we even understood the relation of germs to infectious disease. The Organization's development paralleled this over the years and made it possible to bring progress in the sciences to the benefit of the people in a way it could not have been thought of 100 years ago. The progress from concentration on contagious diseases to building up health and well-being has been steady, and the ability of PAHO to retain its absolutely unchanging goal of improving the health of all the people seems to me a triumph for everybody."
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Dr. Wegman

Dr. Abraham Drobny, Medical Officer 1953-1978
"When I joined the Organization, we spoke about 1902, and none of us thought that we would live until the Organization was 100 years old. To me, it is transcendental the way the Organization has grown and the influence that it has had in these 100 years on health services development and on all the health activities of the countries."
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Dr. Drobny

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt at the II Inter-American Sanitary Conference in Washington, D.C., Oct. 9, 1905
"I believe that we on this hemisphere are going to show to all the world, are going to teach all the world by an object lesson that separate States, separate nations, can dwell together in absolute harmony, and can unite in a common effort, as you are uniting here, for the betterment of the conditions affecting them all... In medical matters, in industrial, scientific, social, artistic matters, each of our countries has something to learn for the others..."