An abbreviated version of CDDEP's weekly digest of public health news, focusing on research in the United States.

The Incidental Economist examines differences between the House (H.R. 5651) and Senate (S.3187) version of the U.S. FDA prescription drug user fee act (PDUFA), in terms of incentives for new antibiotic development.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine releases an updated National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) Strategic Plan for 2012-2016. The new NARMS plan includes initiatives to determine the feasibility of a “pre-harvest sampling approach for NARMS in dairy and feedlot cattle, poultry, and swine,” in addition to samples currently taken from retail meat and carcasses.

The FDA announces that it will appeal a recent ruling mandating a ban on the use of penicillin and two types of tetracycline in animal feed, if the practice is found to be a danger to human health.

ScienceDaily reports on a team of researchers at UC Santa Cruz developing a novel way to fight drug-resistant bacteria in wounds and skin infections using light-activated nitric oxide.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting R&D proposals for new methods of fighting bioterrorism threats including "purposely engineered antibiotic resistant microbes,” reports Business Insider.

A study in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology suggests that antibiograms may lose their ability to predict bacterial susceptibility when patients undergo longer hospital stays.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases its “Summary of Notifiable Diseases” for 2010, including figures for several drug-resistant bacterial infections.

You can sign up to receive the full weekly digest via email on the CDDEP website.