Antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections have become a serious problem and, as ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom points out in his latest op-ed in the New York Post, they are no longer limited to the hospital: Out of the 50 antibiotics once used to treat gonorrhea, only one remains effective (and barely that). But as serious as antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is, it represents a larger-scale problem:
Only two new antibiotics have been approved in the United States since 2007, compared to an average of four a year in the 1980s. Only four of the 12 major drug companies remain in this area of research at all.
The absence of robust antibiotic discovery programs threatens to profoundly alter the practice of infectious disease medicine, to some extent bringing us back to 1940, before antibiotics were available.
We recommend Dr. Bloom s entire discussion of the repercussions of the FDA policy that effectively discourages researches into new antibiotics.