Chapter 20 Taking the Lead on Climate Change - New Approaches on Energy and the Environment

Getting Serious About Antibiotic Resistance Ramanan Laxminarayan

Every year in America, some 40,000 people die from infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria, only slightly less than the number of those killed on our roads.

This may actually be an underestimate, because many other deaths, particularly those of elderly patients suffering from a myriad of problems, may in reality be caused by these so-called superbugs.

Mr. President, in order to address this serious threat to the nation’s public health, I recommend that you introduce legislation to discourage the use of antibiotics where they bring little benefit to patients.

These measures would include increasing cost-sharing for antibiotics under Medicare and Medicaid, while expanding coverage and subsidies for cough and cold medications that patients may use instead of antibiotics. In addition, a large proportion of antibiotic use in the United States is by the animal industry to help farm animals gain weight faster.		Download this Policy Recommendation

Studies indicate that the benefit of using antibiotics for this purpose is greatly outweighed by the cost imposed on the rest of society in terms of reduced antibiotic effectiveness. In light of this, I also propose a ban on the use in growth promotion of all antibiotics that are currently being used to treat human infections.

Related Policy Recommendations:

Chapter 16. Modernizing the Food Safety System
Michael R. Taylor

Chapter 17. Performance Standards for Food Safety
Sandra A.Hoffmann and Alan J. Krupnick


Ramanan Laxminarayan's work on "resistance economics" uses economic analysis to develop policy responses to such problems as bacterial resistance to antibiotics and pest resistance to pesticides. He has served on expert panels on these issues at the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine and is editor of Battling Resistance to Antibiotics and Pesticides: An Economic Approach.

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