We Will Miss Antibiotics When They’re Gone
Kevin Outterson coauthors NYT opinion calling on Congress to fix the broken antibiotic business model.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a disturbing report about the death of an elderly woman in Washoe County, Nev. What killed her wasn’t heart disease, cancer or pneumonia. What killed her were bacteria that were resistant to every antibiotic doctors could throw at them.
This anonymous woman is only the latest casualty in a war against antibiotic-resistant bacteria — a war that we are losing. Although most bacteria die when they encounter an antibiotic, a few hardy bugs survive. Through repeated exposure, those tough bacteria proliferate, spreading resistance genes through the bacterial population. That’s the curse of antibiotics: The more they’re used, the worse they get, especially when they’re used carelessly.
Already, more than 23,000 people in the United States are estimated to die every year from resistant bacteria. That death toll will grow as microbes develop new mechanisms to defeat the drugs that, for decades, have kept infections at bay. We are on the cusp of what the World Health Organization calls a “post-antibiotic era.”
And we will miss antibiotics when they’re gone. …