U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for November 4

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile
America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090226/CENSUSLOGO )

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4: FIRST U.S. ANTIBIOTIC

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 Ukranian
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
National Inventors Hall of Fame
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2009, t. 126, 127

Profile America is produced by the Public Information Office of the U.S.
Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready
to air, on a monthly CD or on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look
under the "Newsroom" button).

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

Rick Reed of the U.S. Census Bureau, +1-301-763-2812, fax: +1-301-763-3762,
Richard.Thomas.Reed-at-census.gov