Louise Slaughter: “I shall be very brief. As a microbiologist as well as a Member of Congress, I have been very concerned for some time…”

“I shall be very brief. As a microbiologist as well as a Member of Congress, I have been very concerned for some time about the overuse of antibiotics and the rise of drug-resistant bacteria. So what we are asking today is just a sum of money, $1 million, to be set aside from the FDA budget to begin to study the overuse of antibiotics in animals and using animals basically as incubators to breed the drug-resistant bacteria. I think it is a matter of top concern. It has been labeled that by the CDC and the World Health Organization, which says it has become a crisis; so I am pleased to put this amendment forward today.”