Presidential Proclamation -- Get Smart About Antibiotics Week, 2015

The discovery of antibiotics marked an important medical moment in history, and for decades, antibiotics have served as crucial components of our fight against bacterial infectious diseases. Saving millions of lives around the world each year, antibiotics provide an effective method for treating patients and help us combat many diseases that were at one time considered fatal. However, their overuse and misuse has created bacteria with increased levels of antibiotic resistance, posing significant challenges to countering infectious disease.