People have abused and improperly used antibiotics, thus reducing effectiveness. The FDA is another unnecessary federal institution that stands squarely in the way of progress. If not eliminated altogether and left to the states and lawyers, it at least ought to be cut down to a size answerable to the people and health professionals... How many stories have we heard over the years about drugs meeting success in other nations while still awaiting FDA approval here? or drug companies deciding the cost is too large for approval to justify the further research due to the number of potential patients?

it is refreshing when professors get the reason why we have patents and understand the underlying costs for IP development-they must have been involved with tech transfer ;)

Excellent story KH, medical health sciences have seen this looming for years. Irose has an great point about compliance in human medicine - that's the real killer (and birther of "superbugs"). Everybody wants a "miracle pill" when they go to the doctor.

Arguments blaming the food industry have no merit - we are allowed a list of ~10 antibiotics to use in food-producing animals (all of them have meat and milk withdrawal times).

I had a chemistry professor in undergrad that took an entire hour (unplanned) to rant about the process of developing a drug, the reasons for patents, and government regulations associated with manufacturing a drug. It was enlightening.

I think the current system is exactly what the left wants. Limited competition and strangling government controls. The last piece to the puzzle is taking over the payment part of the equation. Obamacare solves that.

why aren't there exposes on this?!

I have been reading about this for some time. Reforming the FDA is tops on the list. The time and money it takes to bring drugs to market is out of control. It limits the number of companies that can get involved. I had a sales rep who worked for Proctor and Gamble. I didn't know it but they used to be in the Pharma business. They got out cause they were too small and couldn't compete against companies like Pfizer. She told me that the big Pharma companies have offices across the street from the FDA. I have read that a person can work for the FDA, vote to approve a new drug and then go work for the company making that drug. That system is ripe for abuse. It sounds cold to say that we need competition in the health care industry to bring costs down but the fact is it would help improve the industry in many other ways. We need to find a way to let companies outside the US sell their drugs here without going thru the entire approval process if their drug is already on the market. A drug can be sold in England for years with no side affects but if they want to sell it in the US the testing has to start at square one. I guess we could just say government intervention caused this mess and it(Obamacare) is not the answer to fixing it.

excellent point irose

hmm..

Over-medicating is a symptom of the problem not the direct cause. The cause is failure to complete the prescription. If you fail to complete the prescription you will have killed off most of the bug, leaving only the strongest behind, they then multiply. The problem is that in some parts of the world folks will take the antibiotics till they are feeling better, instead of until they are done. Add to that the part where there are places that for a long time were handing out antibiotics like candy and you will now inevitably have a problem.

Agreed - less government. More competition would be good of course and you are right that Big Pharma must be happy to have the barrier to entry so high.

To clarify ... it was the development lab, the research arm, of the Pfizer anti-bacterial group that I was referring to as having shut down, not manufacturing.

point because I had to google that

jbaker, that's a big comment. lol
1. I would never look to Big pharma for our solutions. if the govt were less involved, you would see more competitors. Pfizer is quite happy we have such barriers to entry. The cost to manufacture drugs is nominal compared to development. The closing of the manufacturing plant is symbolic for the real issue. One incentive might be countries need to pay the market value for antibiotics.
2. the argument of over use (whether I completely agree or not) could be solved by less gatekeeping. If I have a virus, and I go to the doctor and pay 75-100 bucks for the visit, only to hear there's nothing he can do for me-I'm pissed. It's pressure like that (also the fault of govt) that leads to mis prescribing. The food industry argument also has flaws.
http://www.ahi.org/issues-advocacy/anima...
We cannot overlook the fact that people live longer and immuno-compromised people live longer. They get sick more often and spread infections. Bacteria become more resistant. There is some point of perfect intersection between development of drugs and their prescription. The government in all cases affects the perfection of that intersection.

I basically could not agree more. I saw that Frontline report referenced in the article ... chilling. They had some people from Pfizer on there as well as other industry people describing how Pfizer (one of the last big Pharma really investing in anti-bacterial research apparently) shut down that lab. Simply a matter of dollars - why invest so much in a drug that people are only supposed to take for a short period of time when that same money could be invested in a cholesterol drug, or other, that people basically have to take every day for the rest of their lives?

At a high level, it seems like a couple of broad changes are needed to minimize the impact of impending medical disaster.

1. Let the drug companies make their money, possibly with incentives for antibiotics. I don't know where those incentives would come from. The only private sector thing I can think of is that antibiotics simply need to cost a fortune. And yes of course, unneeded regulation needs to get out of the way and all that.

2. People have been saying it for years, but we really do need to cut down drastically on the overuse, knee-jerk use, of antibiotics in humans and the food industry also. Easier said than done. This is classic, "Well, *I* really need this antibiotic right now, I can't afford to get sick. Everyone else should take it easy though."
Plus there are the factors of the business like the cost and risk of law suites, insurance, etc.

My thoughts are essentially half baked. Looking forward to more fully baked comments.