By Marie Rosenthal, MS
Let’s face it. We have reached a point where we were all suffering from pandemic fatigue, especially those of you on the front lines battling COVID-19. People grew tired of wearing masks, being away from family and friends, arguing about vaccination, and watching more than 1 million people suffer and die in the United States alone.
And Congress is definitely tired of paying for it. The money spent on COVID-19 response was astronomical—$4.3 trillion by June, according to USASpending.gov (bit.ly/444TCeO-IDSE).
So, we admit our cover story for this single-topic issue—Antimicrobials and Rapid Diagnostics in Focus—is depressing. Some members of Congress appear to be wary of allocating money not just COVID-19, but also for other infectious diseases, including antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which may be why Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers expressed dismay during a recent House subcommittee meeting about the money that has already been spent on fighting resistance.
“The fact that AMR continues to be a growing threat … despite this heavy investment of resources is alarming,” she said.
And she’s right, AMR is alarming. The World Health Organization predicts by 2050, 10 million people will die annually from a resistant infection if something isn’t done today to support not only the development of novel antimicrobials, but also the companies that bring them to market.
Pharmaceutical companies cannot pour millions of dollars into new drug development without getting a return on that investment. That is just not a sustainable business model, and we need a continuous supply of new and novel antimicrobials, my sources told me.
Every person I spoke with for “The Silent Pandemic” told me that resistance is inevitable, so a healthy pipeline is crucial in the fight against it.
“Never bet against the bugs,” joked Margaret Koziel, MD, something every ID doc learns early in their careers.
The solution, many in the ID community believe, is a payment model that supports innovative product development but continues that support after the product has been approved. It’s called pull funding, and the proposal in the PASTEUR Act (bit.ly/45hgE3h-IDSE) is an antibiotic subscription, similar to the way we pay for media streaming services.
If you agree something needs to be done, contact your federal legislators and tell them you think they should pass the PASTEUR Act. Yes, it’s spending more money, but this time to prevent a serious threat. (Find your representatives at www.congress.gov/members/ find-your-member.)
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this inaugural single-focus issue. We talked with many experts about resistance, stewardship and diagnostic testing; read studies; and listened to presentations to create it. We hope you find it useful.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher.
This article is from the August 2023 print issue.