First U.S. Antibiotic

November 4, 2009

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Profile America — Wednesday, November 4th. This year’s Nobel prizes were announced last month, and the award ceremonies will be held in Stockholm, Sweden, and Oslo, Norway, next month. In 1952, the prize for medicine was awarded for the discovery of the first antibiotic produced in the U.S. — streptomycin. The breakthrough medicine was developed by a Ukrainian immigrant, Dr. Selman Waksman, and four students in 1944 at Rutgers University in New Jersey. It went into production later that year. Prescriptions — including antibiotics — cost patients just over $231 billion a year — about $476 for each American. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.

Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 4998
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2009, t. 126, 127
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2009edition.html