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Watch These Dudes in Congress Tell Planned Parenthood How to Protect Women’s Health

by Eduardo7272 Posted on September 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards appeared today before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in the most recent congressional hearing examining the use of taxpayer funds by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This was Richards’ first appearance before Congress. She had not been invited to participate in either of the two hearings conducted by the House Judiciary Committee earlier in the month, in the wake of the heavily edited and controversial videos released by anti-abortion activist David Daleiden.

Planned Parenthood receives approximately $450 million annually in federal funds, nearly all of which are reimbursements for women’s health services from programs administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. According to Planned Parenthood, last year 41 percent ($528.4 million) of its revenue came from government health services grants and reimbursements.

“The question before us is: Does this organization—does Planned Parenthood—really need a federal subsidy?” said House Oversight chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). “Every time we spend a federal dollar, what we’re doing is pulling money out of somebody’s pocket and we’re giving it to somebody else. What I don’t like, what I don’t want to tolerate, what I don’t want to become numb to is wasting those taxpayer dollars.”

Here are some of the recurring themes from the hearing that attempted to answer his question.

1. Her salary is too high: Chaffetz spent much of his allotted time interrogating Richards about her $590,000 annual salary, which he characterized as “exorbitant.” She corrected him, saying her annual salary is actually $520,000. (Female nonprofit CEOs still make markedly less than male CEOs. In 2013, for example, Laurance Hoagland Jr., chief investment officer of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, made $2.5 million, and John Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society, made $2.1 million.) Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) responded angrily to this inquisition. “The entire time I’ve been in Congress, I’ve never seen a witness beaten up and questioned about their salary,” she said. “Ms. Richards heads a distinguished organization providing health care services to millions of Americans. I find it totally inappropriate and discriminatory.”

2. Her apology was self-incriminating: Several times, Richards was subjected to loud, often aggressive mansplaining about when it is and is not appropriate to issue an apology. Members were referring to a video that PPFA released days after the first sting video in which Richards said, “Our top priority is the compassionate care that we provide. In the sting video, one of our staff members speaks in a way that does not reflect that compassion. This is unacceptable, and I personally apologize for the staff member’s tone and statements.” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) repeatedly asked Richards to justify this. “Why did you apologize?” he asked over and over again. “You can’t have it both ways. If nothing was done wrong, why did you apologize? You don’t apologize if she didn’t say anything that was wrong.”

Richards explained that her apology was more about the setting of the discussion. “I spoke with Dr. Nucatola, and it was inappropriate to have a clinical discussion in a nonconfidential, nonclinical setting,” Richards said. “It was that she used bad judgment to have a clinical discussion in a nonclinical setting.” The conversation in the sting video was over lunch and wine.

3. Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide mammograms: Republican critics of PPFA were also upset that Planned Parenthood clinics don’t provide mammogram services, despite the fact that radiology centers usually offer them because Medicaid reimbursements can’t come close to covering their operational costs. This point seemed to be lost on committee members who considered the lack of mammography as evidence that Planned Parenthood did not really provide women’s health services. Richards explained that when she goes to see her general practitioner and she gets a breast exam, she is referred to a radiologist to get a mammogram. Centers that depend on Medicaid reimbursement are often unable to pay for the equipment and radiologists’ salaries. New 3-D mammography technology is even more expensive. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) saw this as evidence that Planned Parenthood fell short in providing acceptable women’s health services: “Do you acknowledge that community health centers offer a broader range of services, including mammograms?” To this, Richards replied, “I’m not an expert on what all community health centers provide.”

4. Taxpayer dollars are paying for abortions: The repeated expressions of outrage by Republicans over “taxpayer dollars” being used for abortion services was, according to committee member Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), “exhausting.”

“I know my colleagues are more intelligent than this,” Lawrence said. “This is not a lump sum we give Planned Parenthood. It is a reimbursement.”

Under federal law, no taxpayer dollars are allocated to abortion services. PPFA has submitted its tax filings and reimbursement records, and so far there has been no evidence that it violated this law. That did not stop Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) from expressing concern that “taxpayer dollars are being used to free up services that you provide that are aberrant services in the view of many taxpayers.”

5) Planned Parenthood provides too many abortions: Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) does not understand how the 327,000 abortions Planned Parenthood performed in 2014 amount to only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services. Meadows claimed it was more like 12 percent. But as Richards explained, some patients visit more than once, and for multiple services, bringing the percentage down substantially.

And as my colleague Kevin Drum reported, Chaffetz used a chart from anti-abortion group Americans United for Life that incorrectly claimed that Planned Parenthood’s breast examinations have trended radically downward in recent years, while abortion services have substantially risen. In fact, cancer screenings have declined because, as Richards said, “some of the services, like pap smears, dropped in frequency because of changing medical standards about who should be screened and how often.” Abortion rates for Planned Parenthood have only increased about 2 percent per year since 2006.

6) Planned Parenthood is in cahoots with President Barack Obama: Toward the end of the nearly six-hour hearing, Jordan asked Richards about the internal workings of her staff. “Since the videos, has anyone from HHS, CMS contacted you?” Richards replied that because she has a big staff, she can’t answer that with 100 percent confidence. “Has the Attorney General of the United States Loretta Lynch contacted Planned Parenthood?” Jordan persisted. “Has anyone from the Justice Department contacted Planned Parenthood since the videos surfaced? There are potentially four federal crimes committed here, and all I’m asking is, has the Justice Department contacted you?” Richards repeated that she could not answer his questions with any certainty.

Jordan then escalated his attack. “Have you had any conversations with the president of the United States?” he asked. “Since the videos have surfaced, how many times have you been to the White House? How many times have you been to the White House since Mr. Obama’s been president?” Richards again said she couldn’t be sure, but Jordan was ready with an answer. “Our count shows that you, your board members, and senior staff have been to the White House 151 times in six and a half years.”

Investigations are also ongoing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee and in the House Judiciary Committee. So far, no wrongdoing has been found. Six state investigations that were triggered by the videos have also been closed after finding no evidence that Planned Parenthood violated law.

A subpoena has been issued to anti-abortion activist Daleiden for his investigative materials, and according to Chaffetz, they have been received but not yet opened or examined.

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Watch These Dudes in Congress Tell Planned Parenthood How to Protect Women’s Health

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The Average Presidential Candidate’s House Is Twice as Big as the Average American’s

by DonGladejfdybow Posted on September 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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You don’t have to have a big or expensive house to run for the White House, but it is one thing that most of the Republicans and Democrats currently running for president do have in common. The average value of their homes is $5.4 million (or $1.5 million if you factor out Donald Trump.) More stats on the properties the candidates call home (and second home):

Sources: Property records and reported estimates of home values. Price of US house: Census Bureau
Does not include governors’ mansions. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s house is still under construction.

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The Average Presidential Candidate’s House Is Twice as Big as the Average American’s

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China Will Pony Up $3.1 Billion to Help Poor Countries Fight Climate Change

by JuanW19aoss Posted on September 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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China followed up its promise Friday to create the world’s largest cap-and-trade program with yet another significant climate policy announcement: It will commit to spending $3.1 billion to help developing countries slash their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. China’s financial commitment, along with its new carbon market, are part of a comprehensive package of climate measures to be announced at a joint press conference featuring US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday in Washington, DC.

The new pledge, emerging from high-profile bilateral talks between the two countries, “is a game changer in international climate politics,” says Li Shuo, a climate policy analyst for Greenpeace. “It is a drastic increase from China’s previous finance commitments.”

“In terms of scale, 3.1 billion USD could even surpass the US pledge to the Green Climate Fund, which still faces a significant battle in the US Congress,” Li said in an email.

Last year, Obama pledged $3 billion to the United Nation’s Green Climate Fund during a G20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia. That pledge followed a landmark climate deal forged last year between the United States and China that set the stage for today’s agreement.

But Obama’s commitment to the Green Climate Fund still faces stiff opposition at home from congressional Republicans who have vowed to block the White House’s first funding request of $500 million. Sen. James Inhofe, who chairs the committee on the environment and public works, has said he will do everything in his power “to prevent $3 billion in taxpayer dollars from going to the Green Climate Fund, where the money will be spent by unelected UN bureaucrats to dictate U.S. policy and hinder developing countries’ ability to aggressively address the economics of poverty.”

On Friday, China will also commit to controlling public investment flowing into high-polluting industries, both domestically and internationally, according to the briefings received by Greenpeace, signaling a top-down response in a country that exerts an enormous influence over the direction of markets.

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China Will Pony Up $3.1 Billion to Help Poor Countries Fight Climate Change

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The 10 Most Important Lines From Pope Francis’ Historic Speech to Congress

by MaryannR68 Posted on September 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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In a powerful speech to a joint session of Congress Thursday morning, Pope Francis pushed the United States to confront several political issues that tend to divide Republicans and Democrats, including immigration, climate change, the Iran deal, Cuba, poverty, and the death penalty. His speech noted that politics “cannot be a slave to the economy and finance.” He didn’t chastise any political party, and he, not surprisingly, had a clear but brief reference to opposing abortion. But overall, his address had a progressive cast.

Here are the most powerful quotes, according to the prepared text:

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The 10 Most Important Lines From Pope Francis’ Historic Speech to Congress

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Jeb Bush Has No Clue About Business Regulation

by JosetteOneil Posted on September 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Jeb Bush today in the Wall Street Journal:

To understand what is wrong with the regulatory culture of the U.S. under President Obama, consider this alarming statistic: Today, according to the World Bank—not exactly a right-wing think tank—the U.S. ranks 46th in the world in terms of ease of starting a business. That is unacceptable. Think what the U.S. could be and the prosperity we could have if we rolled back the overregulation that keeps us from ranking in the top 10.

My goodness. That does sound unacceptable. Still, it never hurts to check up on these presidential candidates, does it? So let’s click the link.

Sure enough, the World Bank ranks the United States 46th in ease of starting a business. But there’s an asterisk next to that. Let’s scroll down and see what it says: “The rankings of economies with populations over 100 million are based on data for 2 cities.” Hmmm. It turns out the World Bank is ranking the US based on starting up a business in New York City. That seems to tip the scales a wee bit, no?

But let’s soldier on. New Zealand ranks first in starting a new business, so let’s see how they work their magic. Here’s the World Bank’s comparison:

So it takes half a day in New Zealand and four days in New York City. Really? Half a day to start up a new business? Maybe they’re not using the same definition of “starting” that I am. Let’s check out the details for New York City. Here they are:

Now I get it. This isn’t about getting a business up and running. It’s solely about registering a new business. And it’s got nothing to do with any of Obama’s regulations. It’s all about state and local stuff. The only part that’s federal is getting an EIN number, which is free and takes one day. I’m not sure what Jeb Bush thinks he’s going to do to streamline this.

Bottom line: this is completely meaningless. It’s a measure only of how long it takes to register a business, and it’s only for New York City. And even at that, it takes only four days and costs $750. This is not stifling American entrepreneurship.

But wait! There’s more. The World Bank does have a broader “Ease of Doing Business” rank that takes into account the things you need to do to get up and running: construction permits, electricity, credit, paying taxes, enforcing contracts, etc. As it happens, the bulk of this stuff is still state and local, and has nothing to do with Obama or the federal government. Still, let’s take a look since Jeb chose not to share it with us for some reason. Where does the US rank on this measure?

The World Bank has us in 7th place. We’re already in the top ten that Jeb is aiming for. Mission accomplished!

POSTSCRIPT: Jeb has many other statistics in his piece, and I’d take them with the same grain of salt as his World Bank numbers. He also promises that in his administration every regulation “will have to satisfy a rigorous White House review process, including a cost-benefit analysis.” Apparently he doesn’t realize that this is already the case. As for the outrageous regulations he promises to repeal on Day One, this would mostly just benefit big campaign donors, not the yeoman entrepreneurs he claims to be sticking up for. No big surprise there, I suppose.

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Jeb Bush Has No Clue About Business Regulation

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Gay People, Liberal Nun Fail to Embarrass Pope at the White House

by dkqmqscwx Posted on September 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Pope Francis survived his visit to the White House this morning without anyone flashing boobs at him. That news might come as a surprise to conservatives, who for the past week have been attacking President Barack Obama for indecorously inviting LGBT activists and a liberal nun to attend the pope’s speech at the White House. They warned that the potential of these guests to embarrass the pontiff was scandalously high.

Among those on the guest list were the first gay Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, and Nuns on the Bus organizer Sister Simone Campbell, who defied American bishops to organize American nuns to publicly support Obamacare, which the bishops have said is akin to endorsing abortion because it mandates insurance coverage for contraceptives. Others included a gay Catholic blogger and a couple of transgender activists.

When the news broke of their inclusion in the papal event, GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee went on a tear, telling Fox’s Megyn Kelly that inviting them to the White House was like setting up an open bar at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He has claimed the guest list was evidence that Obama was more interested in respecting the religious views of Osama bin Laden than those of the pope. He wrote in the Daily Caller:

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Gay People, Liberal Nun Fail to Embarrass Pope at the White House

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Pope Francis Just Arrived For His First Visit to the United States

by LouellaBenjamin Posted on September 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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By Scott Malone and Philip Pullella

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (Reuters) – Pope Francis arrived on his first visit to the United States on Tuesday, bringing to Washington a message that its power and wealth should be made to serve humanity, and not the other way around.

An Alitalia plane carrying the Argentine-born leader of the world’s 1.2 billion member Roman Catholic church touched down at Joint Base Andrews after a flight from Cuba.

Schoolchildren who gathered on the tarmac to welcome Francis cheered as the plane descended. “We love Francis, yes we do. We love Francis, how about you?” they chanted.

In a sign of the importance that the White House gives to the visit, President Barack Obama took the unusual step of traveling to the air base with his family to welcome Francis.

The two men meet again on Wednesday at the White House, after which the 78-year-old pope will parade past Washington’s major monuments before a crowd expected to reach tens of thousands.

The pontiff has electrified liberal-leaning U.S. Catholics with his shift in emphasis towards forgiveness and concern for the poor. He has dismayed some conservative followers with comments of concern over climate change and a pivot away from messages focused on the church’s ban on birth control and opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Francis was also expected to talk about immigration during his six-day visit, a top issue for him since his first days as pope in 2013.

He will make the first address by any pope to the U.S. Congress on Thursday, a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Friday and an open-air Mass in Philadelphia where 1.5 million people are expected to attend.

Francis spent four days in Cuba, where he urged a continued reconciliation between the Communist-run island and its superpower neighbor, building on a new detente he helped to broker earlier this year.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton at Joint Base Andrews and Laila Kearney in Philadelphia; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)

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Pope Francis Just Arrived For His First Visit to the United States

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Which States Are the Most Obese?

by FletaSWTvba Posted on September 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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Bulging waistlines have become the new normal in the United States, according to Monday’s State of Obesity report. Though only five states saw increases in adult obesity last year, researchers noted little improvement to the nation’s weight crisis overall: The average American adult is 24 pounds heavier than in 1980, when obesity rates were less than half of their present levels. The report is published annually by Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

With more than one-third of Americans considered obese and nearly 70 percent overweight, rates of obesity-linked diseases have also risen steadily. Across the South and Midwest, where the obesity crisis is most severe (Arkansas, West Virginia, and Mississippi topped the scales in this year’s report), rates of hypertension and diabetes climbed past record highs. Racial and economic disparities are also acute: nearly half of black adults are now obese, compared with just under a third of White adults. The researchers said that higher rates of food insecurity, targeted marketing of unhealthy foods, and unequal health care access were all factors contributing to the disparity.

But the researchers also note a few areas where policy and lifestyle have curbed crisis-level rates. Obesity was less of an issue in states out West and in the Northeast where sedentary lifestyles are less common (the nation’s slimmest state, Colorado, also had the lowest rate of physical inactivity). And while the child obesity rate remains three times its level in 1980, the researchers add that outreach to parents, programs offering nutrition assistance, and healthy eating campaigns in schools seem to be making a difference: Obesity among children has declined since 2004.

Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

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Which States Are the Most Obese?

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Donald Trump Talked to Twitter Today and It Wasn’t Insane. His Campaign May Be Doomed.

by RollandMacansh Posted on September 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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In an attempt to showcase a bit of social media savvy—which thus far has been astonishingly lacking—Donald Trump’s campaign stopped by Twitter today to give voters an opportunity to freely query the Republican front-runner using the hashtag #AskTrump.

While the resulting responses didn’t exactly match Trump’s usual penchant for offensive, unfiltered candor, the poorly lit videos did provide a closer glimpse at what a Trump White House and its policies could look like. Take a look at what your future with President Trump may have in store:

But don’t let these videos fool you—#AskTrump was roundly ridiculed by the internet. Here are some of the best takes:

Overall, the chat was remarkably unremarkable. Does this newly tame Trump signal that his momentum is finally dwindling? Stay tuned.

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Donald Trump Talked to Twitter Today and It Wasn’t Insane. His Campaign May Be Doomed.

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Antibiotics Are Spreading Like Crazy—and a Lot of Them Are About to Stop Working

by HiltonXocsd Posted on September 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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In 1945, Sir Alexander Fleming won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of penicillin, which transformed modern medicine. Later that year, the bacteriologist issued a prescient warning: The miracle medicine could one day come with dangerous side effects. If antibiotics were overused, he told the New York Times, bacteria would develop resistance and spur a new generation of bugs impervious to the drugs’ power.

In the last 60 years, Fleming’s advice has gone largely unheeded. Antibiotic consumption continues to grow even as health officials around the world sound the alarm over rising numbers of resistant bacteria. Now, a new report from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP), a multidisciplinary research organization, paints a harrowing picture of where we stand in the arms race against antibiotic resistance. The main finding is grim: Antibiotic consumption rose by 30 percent between 2000 and 2010 and is expected to swell further as demand for drugs and mass-produced meat products grow around the world.

“Antibiotic resistance is now clearly a problem in both the developed world and developing countries,” coauthor Ramanan Laxminarayan told National Geographic. “Things are about to get a lot worse before they get better.”

With the report, CDDEP also launched an interactive data visualization that shows antibiotic use from 69 countries. Additional charts also show antibiotic resistance rates of 12 different types of bacteria. For example:

One reason for the rising rates of resistance: Many developing countries that now have access to affordable antibiotics do not yet have the infrastructure to regulate them. The report highlights that 80 percent of antibiotics are consumed in communities and not in hospitals, and are often not prescribed by doctors. Many of the drugs being used are intended only for emergency cases. As Maryn McKenna reported in National Geographic:

Troublingly, that rising consumption worldwide takes in the most precious last-ditch drugs. Carbapenem use rose by 40 percent between 2000 and 2010, and the use of the very last-resort drug class polymixins rose by 13 percent. Sales of those drugs are rising fastest in India, Pakistan and Egypt, and many of those sales are retail, outside countries’ healthcare systems.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of the roughly 2 million people in the United States afflicted every year with illnesses caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, 23,000 of them will die. These illnesses cost around $20 billion each year, and lead to an additional $35 billion in productivity losses.

In response to the imminent and growing threat of antibiotic resistance, this year, the White House launched the National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, which aims to cut down on overuse in the next five years. While it does offer a promising framework for better practices in health care, as my colleague Tom Phillpot reports, regulations fall short in one of the key areas of antibiotic overuse: agriculture. The meat industry consumes an unbelievable 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration’s voluntary guidelines advise against the use of antibiotics for animal growth—but the industry continues to exploit regulatory loopholes and administer growing amounts of antibiotics to the animals we eat.

Worldwide, according to the report, more than 63,000 tons of antibiotics were given to livestock in 2010, and this number is only expected to grow. Over the next 15 years, as demand for meat grows around the world and small scale farms switch to mass production to keep up, animal consumption of antibiotics is projected to increase by 67 percent.

While the outlook on growing antibiotic use and the likelihood of increased resistance seems grim, the authors of the report offer six strategies that could help curb the issues before they get worse:

Reduce the need for antibiotics through improved water, sanitation, and immunization
Improve hospital infection control and antibiotic stewardship
Change incentives that encourage antibiotic overuse and misuse to incentives that encourage antibiotic stewardship
Reduce and eventually phase out subtherapuetic antibiotic use in agriculture
Educate and inform health professionals, policymakers, and the public on sustainable antibiotic use
Ensure political commitment to meet the threat of antibiotic resistance

Earlier this year, the World Health Organizations’ governing body, the World Health Assembly, called for its member countries to adopt policies that will curb antibiotic use by 2017. The report’s authors hope their findings will lead to stronger stewardship around the world.

“With support from WHO and the international community, this resolution could catalyze change—or, like similar resolutions over the past decade, it may be ignored,” they write. “The evidence in this report, documenting the seriousness of the problem and offering a successful approach to country level action, supports both the urgency and the feasibility of making progress in conserving antibiotic effectiveness.”

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Antibiotics Are Spreading Like Crazy—and a Lot of Them Are About to Stop Working

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