Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, survival of the fittest has its downside. When an antibiotic is used on the bacteria in a person or animal, it may kill some of the bacteria, but it will not kill all of them. The survivors reproduce, propagating these heartier antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic resistance, as we have discussed on this floor for several years, is a serious and growing threat; 38 Americans die every day. Thirty-eight Americans die every day from antibiotic-resistant infections according to the World Health Organization. Some estimates suggest that the number is twice that size. Antibiotic resistance costs the American health care system an estimated $4 billion every year. The Centers for Disease Control has called antibiotic resistance one of its top concerns. Human medicine is partly to blame. The CDC has launched a campaign to better educate doctors and patients about the dangers of antibiotic overuse. But animal agriculture is also to blame. Some 70 percent of antibiotic use in America is not for people but for cows, for pigs, for chickens and for other animals we eat. About 70 percent of those antibiotics are used not on sick animals but either to prevent illness prophylactically, or just to make healthy animals grow faster. The overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture has serious consequences.”