This is not a conference set up just for public health officials. It (the summit) is really aimed for people in government, hospitals in industry to learn how to handle a flu pandemic as a community.

With the way the avian flu is spreading in Turkey we don't know what it may do when it reaches the United States.

It has been shown time and again with instances of transmittable diseases (such as SARS in Toronto) that if we have a plan and are clam then we could keep the number of infections down.

We will have health care reform in America.

If we do nothing, as the Republicans suggest, we're going to see health care costs reach a point where small businesses can't afford it and families can't afford it. We're going to see people turned down from pre-existing conditions. We're going to find the Medicare doughnut hole - a gap in coverage that's going to hurt a lot of seniors.

1,500 people overwhelms any health care system.