SUPERBUG on Capitol Hill

Constant readers, I've been shamefully absent from the blog, but with reason, since I've been traveling promoting the book. There was a pretty interesting opportunity this week that I wanted to tell you about: I was asked to be part of two Congressional briefings in Washington, DC Wednesday, addressing the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture and the contribution that makes to the emergence of resistant organisms such as MRSA. I went specifically to tell the story of the emergence of MRSA ST398, which we've been talking about for years here.

The briefings (FYI, "hearings" are for Congresspersons, "briefings" are for their staff) were cosponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, Union of Concerned Scientists, American Public Health Association, Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the nonprofit Keep Antibiotics Working.

Here's Pew's announcement, here's the UCS version, here's a write-up from the Washington Examiner, and here's a longer one from the site Spectrum Science.