We have been inundated with news of a world that changes at a head snapping pace.  Unprecedented number of tornados in New York, the direct result of our worsening climate; an unending opioid epidemic; wars across the globe; an ongoing covid pandemic in which cases are rising; an assassination attempt on a candidate for president; and last weekend the first withdrawal of a sitting President running for re-election so close to a convention.  Of course, there’s more, but it’s hard to stay on top of what’s going on when so much is.

Yet, public attention on issues helps generate public demands for a resolution of those issues.  Capturing the public’s interest is an integral component for policy action.

What then happens when the opposite occurs?  What happens to an issue that has been well documented, has and will have a devastating impact, but has seen little sustained public attention?

That’s what’s happening when it comes to the growing resistance of certain infections to treatment by antibiotics. 

Due to the overuse and misuse of antibiotics in humans and animals, many strains of bacteria have evolved resistance to medically important antibiotics, meaning they are not killed by the drugs.  Instead, they survive, multiply, and spread.  In fact, the more antibiotics are used, the faster antibiotic-resistant bacteria (a/k/a “superbugs”) develop, putting more people around the world at increased risk of contracting an antibiotic-resistant infection.  

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are most prevalent in environments associated with high antibiotic use: healthcare settings, the community, and in livestock production.  Antibiotic resistance can spread from person to person, from animal to person, via the natural environment or contaminated food, and from bacteria to bacteria.  Some bacteria have developed resistance to multiple antibiotics, making them especially difficult to treat, and thus very dangerous and sometimes deadly.  Common infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, blood poisoning, food poisoning, and gonorrhea have already become harder and sometimes impossible to treat due to multidrug-resistant bacteria.

In recognition of the serious threat to public health posed by antibiotic-resistant infections, members of the U.N. General Assembly back in 2016 committed to taking collaborative action.  The World Health Organization (WHO) considers it to be one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and international development today.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that fighting this threat is a public health priority and estimates that each year, at least 2.8 million people get an antibiotic-resistant infection, and more than 35,000 people die in the United States today. 

The future looks bleak, too.  A study commissioned by the U.K. government predicts that if action is not taken now to combat antibiotic resistance,by 2050 the annual death toll will have risen to 10 million globally.  

Yet despite the research, the scientific consensus for action, the significant death toll, and the occasional media story, the public has not been galvanized.  As a result, according to new research from the WHO, the global antibiotic pipeline remains woefully inadequate in the face of increasing antibiotic resistance. 

For example, the report found that just four of the drugs in development have the potential to treat at least one drug-resistant bacteria deemed by WHO as a critical threat, the organization’s most serious level. 

According to a chilling analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts, “What is resoundingly clear from WHO’s pipeline data is that the new medications the world needs do not exist.  That’s because, in part, the antibiotic market is fundamentally broken.”

Contrast that with the high speed turnaround in getting vaccines developed and distributed to help combat the Covid-19 epidemic.  As a result, “Covid-19 vaccinations were rapidly developed during the first year of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and have saved millions of lives worldwide, at least 3 million in the United States.”

Obviously, the comparison only goes so far:  The Covid virus, while rapidly evolving, is based on a single pathogen; antibiotic resistance is a different “animal” altogether.  But the failure to develop medicines in response to the growing superbug menace is at least partially the result of the lack of a sustained public outcry and action by policymakers.

Congressional action is needed and there is legislation to help take on the superbugs.  Pioneering Antimicrobial Subscriptions to End Upsurging Resistance (PASTEUR) Act, now awaiting action in Congress, is designed to address the flaws of the antibiotic market and help kick start the medicine pipeline to combat the threat of the superbugs.

There are many threats, scandals, diseases, violence, and other dangers that constantly rear their ugly heads.  We can’t hope that these problems will solve themselves.  We need civic action to make things change for the better.  This is an election year; it would be good for the public to ask the candidates where they are in advancing solutions to the superbug threat.  We are rapidly running out of time to pose this critical question.