Article: Budget Cuts Slow Agencies Fighting New Bacteria Strains Series: THE ABUSE OF ANTIBIOTICS: SEARCHING FOR A NEW CURE Series Number: 2/2

The carpets are frayed, much of the lab equipment is old and the hallways are crowded with refrigerators filled with medical specimens at Ruth Berkelman's facility in Atlanta.

But it's the best the Centers for Disease Control has been able to muster so far to fight what some experts call the worst medical threat since AIDS -- the spread of new strains of bacteria that resist the antibiotics that cure so many diseases.

In three aging buildings at the center, Berkelman and a staff of 50 medical sleuths work long hours to track the bugs. They seek out patterns among the microbes that hospitals have encountered; they put out bulletins to doctors. But, looking at the limitations of equipment and ...

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