Greg Ganske: “First let me thank Members of both sides of the aisle for their get-well wishes. I appreciate it very much. Earlier this…”

“First let me thank Members of both sides of the aisle for their get-well wishes. I appreciate it very much. Earlier this month I was seriously ill and so I want to speak about this bill in a little different vein, so to speak. There will be a lot of talk about how this bill will economically be beneficial to farmers, and that is true, and this will help our country, I think, compete internationally in terms of livestock production. But I want to speak about something else. We have not had new drugs to treat animals, have many of them, for a long time, and this bill will streamline the process and help us get new ones. There is a term called animal husbandry. It is an old term. It has been applied to farmers, but I think it is appropriate. When a farmer has a herd or has a flock, and they come down with a respiratory infection and they are suffering and they are sick, that farmer is not thinking just about the economic impact. He is looking at his flock and he is looking at his herds and he knows they are sick and he knows they are suffering. And if you talk to a family that has had a pet and their pet dog or cat becomes sick, they see the suffering in that animal. I have been the beneficiary recently of modern medicine and some good antibiotics and good medicines and I think it is time that we make the modern technology that we have had on the human side more available on the animal side as well. I really think it is the only humanitarian thing to do.”