[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 88 (Tuesday, July 11, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1209-E1210]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND 
               RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2001

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                     HON. LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 10, 2000

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4461) making 
     appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and 
     Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the 
     fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other 
     purposes:

  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Brown-
Waxman-Slaughter amendment. My generation remembers all too clearly the 
scourge of infectious diseases. When we were children, surviving to 
adolescence could be a major challenge. Children ran a gauntlet of 
potentially fatal diseases against which doctors had few, if any, 
effective weapons--influenza, pneumonia, measles, and tuberculosis, to 
name just a few. For some of us, we relived those fears again with our 
children. I know that with my three daughters, I breathed a sigh of 
relief when each summer ended and they had again escaped contracting 
polio.
  With the discovery of antibiotics, the world of health and medicine 
was transformed. Antibiotics were nothing short of a miracle. Just a 
few doses could banish these terrifying diseases from our and our 
children's lives, allowing the nation to become dramatically healthier 
in the space of scarcely a decade. Modern medicine had triumphed over 
disease, relegating these terrors to the medical history books.
  Or so we thought. Today we know differently. Infectious disease 
microorganisms have evolved over millennia, and they can be ingenious 
in ensuring their own survival. The advent of antibiotics dealt them a 
setback, but only a temporary one. After only a few decades these 
microbes are showing us just how quickly they can adapt and render 
themselves impervious to some or all of the antibiotics in our health 
care arsenal.
  As a former microbiologist, I am keenly aware of the critical 
challenge posed by antimicrobial resistance. In fact, I wrote my 
master's thesis on the misuse of penicillin. Many factors are currently 
contributing to antimicrobial resistance: overprescription of 
antibiotics, individuals' failure to take all their medication, lack of 
handwashing and proper hygiene, and the increased ability of people--
and therefore microbes--to travel around the globe quickly. Just as 
this problem is multi-faceted, so must any solution be.
  This amendment seeks to address one critical component of that 
problem: the use of antibiotics to boost livestock growth and 
production. Decades ago, farmers discovered that the use of antibiotics 
at very low levels caused animals to grow faster and bigger. The amount 
of antibiotics used were too low to

[[Page E1210]]

have any value in killing off infections in the animals. Over time, the 
practice of feeding antibiotics to livestock at ``subtherapeutic'' 
levels has become a common tool in the agriculture industry.
  Unfortunately, this practice appears to be having an insidious side 
effect. Preliminary studies indicate that the bacteria in livestock may 
be developing an immunity to certain antibiotics as they are 
consistently exposed to these drugs at low levels. As the old saying 
goes, that which does not kill them makes them stronger.
  This amendment would shift a very modest amount of funds within the 
Food and Drug Administration budget to the FDA's Center for Veterinary 
Medicine. With this funding, the Center could move more quickly on its 
top priority, assessing and preventing the growth of antimicrobial 
resistance related to livestock husbandry practices.
  We must take action if we expect antibiotics to continue being 
effective in treating human ailments. None of us want to return to a 
day when a bout of pneumonia could easily mean a death sentence for 
one's child or parent. I urge my colleagues to support the Brown-
Waxman-Slaughter amendment.

                          ____________________