In the US, antibiotic innovation has skidded to a halt. The last novel class approved by the FDA debuted in 1984.
Follow the latest news and policy debates on sustainable agriculture, biomedicine, and other ‘disruptive’ innovations. Subscribe to our newsletter.
That patients might run out of effective antibiotics is a jarring thought. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that antibiotic-resistant infections already kill more than 48,000 Americans each year and sicken 2.8 million. A January study in The Lancet estimated the annual global death toll at 1.27 million. Antibiotic resistance got worse during the pandemic as health care workers tried to protect Covid patients from bacterial infections, not just in individual outbreaks in hospitals but across the US.
