A scary story about drug-resistent gonhorrea made the rounds recently. Meanwhile, The Guardian recently reported that "Antibiotic-resistant bacteria with the potential to cause untreatable infections pose "a catastrophic threat" to the population" of its country of origin, England.
Long-time Blawgconomics readers might recall that a friend of the site, Alissa Fideli, explored the drug-resistent bacteria problem from a legal perspective a few years back in a paper she was working on which I was happy to posts a few excerpts from. From Ms. Fideli's paper:
Antibiotic resistance, and particularly the resistance of Gram-negative
bacteria, is a serious problem in global public health. Despite this significant
threat, pharmaceutical companies are not developing drugs to address these
problems. The incentives provided in the current laws, including patent
protection and other specific exclusivities, have not spurred technology in this
area. As such, there needs to be a new approach, and new incentives to create
antibiotics to address and manage this potentially lethal threat. A
multinational agreement, that can attack the problem from different angles
throughout the world, is the best solution for this global problem.
Anyone interested in reading more of Ms. Fideli's work can find everything Blawgconomics published from her paper here and here.
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