You know what’s really scary? Antibiotic resistance. The CDC says how scary.
The agency’s overall — and, it stressed, conservative — assessment of the problem:
- Each year, in the U.S., 2,049,442 illnesses caused by bacteria and fungi that are resistant to at least some classes of antibiotics;
- Each year, out of those illnesses, 23,000 deaths;
- Because of those illnesses and deaths, $20 billion each year in additional healthcare spending;
- And beyond the direct healthcare costs, an additional $35 billion lost to society in foregone productivity.
“If we are not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director, said in a media briefing. “And for some patients and for some microbes, we are already there.”
Bacteria evolve. Resistance to antibiotics is selected. Problem.
In an interview before the report became public, Frieden said that some of these actions are already happening. “My biggest frustration is the pace of change,” he told me. “Hospitals are making progress, but it’s single digits in terms of the number of hospitals that are being very proactive. The challenge is scaling up what we know works, and doing that fast enough so that we can close the door on drug resistance before it’s too late.”
Yes but the people in charge have more important things to do, like…uh…
I got nothin.