> The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control estimates that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) results each year in 25 000 deaths and related costs of over €1.5 billion in healthcare expenses and productivity losses.
http://ec.europa.eu/health/antimicrobial_resistance/policy/i...
No, the problem is not that severe right now. In fact, some of the antibiotic resistant infections have decreased over the last few years.
This is something we need to worry about 5-10+ years from now. It is inevitable that bacteria will become resistant to current antibiotics. The only way to keep ahead of them is to create new antibiotics.
Isn't this exactly what people used to say about the food supply?
FYI: One of the last-ditch antibiotics (I forget the name) has a side-effect of permanently damaging hearing. I have to basically yell at 95 yo grandmother for her to hear me. :)
(1) You say it can't be left up to market economics, but two of the big hurdles to new antibiotic development are government regulations: (I) In the past the FDA was not very responsive to the resistance problem, if you had a new drug, you went through a normal review; luckily they have changed their approach recently (II) The way that Medicare and Medicaid pays for antibiotics doesn't encourage investment in novel agents
(2) I have to push back on the "going to the moon" type thing. This is more like we've already been to the moon and we need to go back and do something different. Drug companies know how to develop new antibiotics (not to say it's easy, but they have ideas) and they know how to get them approved. There are new discoveries all the time. We just need to create an ecosystem that encourages further investment.