It s no secret that the world is facing a terrible scenario as antibiotics that used to be very effective in treating bacterial infections are failing one by one due to the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria.
And as if this problem wasn t bad enough, the cessation of most antibiotic research by major pharmaceutical companies all but guarantees that this problem will become far worse.
Why did this happen?
In today s New York Post, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom examines the consequences of the huge change in direction of pharmaceutical research a mad dash into oncology research at the expense of other therapeutic areas, especially the development of badly needed antibiotics.
As if this weren t bad enough, the cancer drugs that are being approved are very expensive and of limited use typically extending lives by a few month, so the net effect of this trend is clearly negative.
Dr. Bloom notes, The U.S. pharmaceutical landscape has changed rapidly and radically over the past decade with dire consequences. Companies have exited en masse from research in traditional disease areas, plunging headfirst into cancer research. The result: We re getting lots of new not-especially-valuable cancer drugs, and not getting new pharmaceuticals we need far worse in particular, new antibiotics to combat the nonstop emergence of resistant superbugs.