Dick Durbin: “3 weeks ago, scientists at Boston's Northeastern University made an amazing discovery in a pile of dirt. They found a…”

“3 weeks ago, scientists at Boston's Northeastern University made an amazing discovery in a pile of dirt. They found a new antibiotic called teixobactin. This new antibiotic, the first that has been discovered in more than 25 years, holds the potential to kill off a wide variety of disease-causing bacteria. It offers hope for a cure to serious and growing antibiotic resistant diseases. President Obama noted in his State of the Union Address that antibiotic resistance is one of the world's most pressing public health challenges. In the United States alone, it costs us at least $20 billion a year and claims 23,000 lives. A plastic storage crate filled with backyard dirt might seem like an unlikely source for a breakthrough, but that is exactly where these scientists--who were working under a grant from the National Institutes of Health--discovered this potentially lifesaving medical breakthrough. Scientific breakthroughs are nothing new for the United States of America. In the last century we split the atom, defeated polio, conquered space, created the Internet, and mapped the human genome. All of those historic achievements had something in common with the discovery of teixobactin--they were backed by U.S. Government research funds. I have people come up to me in Illinois and say: Name one thing this government has ever done. Well, aside from winning a few wars that were critical to the future of mankind, we have done amazing things when it comes to research.…”