Well the weather forecasters were correct on this snow storm. It was a doozy as evidenced by the backyard of the FEHBlog’s house this morning.

The federal government is shutdown tomorrow. The House of Representatives is punting all votes to next week and the Senate is holding off on votes until Wednesday. It is not clear whether or not Ms. Cobert’s confirmation hearing will be held as scheduled on Tuesday. Here’s a link to the Hill’s article on the hearing.

The FEHBlog nearly fell out his breakfast nook when he read this Wall Street Journal article yesterday. Due to overuse of antiobiotics, medical reseachers are turning to an old school cure called bateriophages.

Little known among doctors in the West, phages have been part of the antibacteria arsenal in countries of the former Soviet Union for decades. Doctors in the U.S. and much of Europe stopped using phages to fight bacteria when penicillin and other antibiotics were introduced in the 1940s. Now, though, Western scientists are turning back to this Stalin-era cure to help curb the dramatic growth of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

Heavens knows what the drug manufacturers will charge for this specialty drug.