We’re already fighting the next global health emergency: Growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Common ailments such as UTIs and sepsis are increasingly able to tough out the drugs developed against them. Some develop into superbugs that defy treatment trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Antimicrobials is the catch-all term for the many antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and other drugs that prevent infections in:
Pathogens naturally develop resistance to antimicrobials as they evolve, but thanks to an overuse of antibiotics and other conditions, the speed of such resistance has become a major global health issue trib.al/Z4TUOmz
It’s hard to overstate the urgency of the challenge:
Covid-19 has resulted in some 5.6 million deaths, but previous estimates have said AMR will claim 10 million lives annually by 2050 — and that figure already looks low trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Drug-resistant infections are already killing more people globally than malaria and HIV combined.
In the U.S. alone, there are some 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections annually and over 35,000 people die as a result trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Global estimates of the burden of antimicrobial resistance confirm the worst fears:
In 2019, nearly 1.3 million deaths were directly attributed to infections that were drug-resistant and more than 4.9 million deaths were related to drug resistance trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Nearly 79% of the deaths were attributed to three syndromes:
⚕️Lower respiratory and thorax infections
⚕️Bloodstream infections
⚕️Intra-abdominal infections trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Better education, sanitation, surveillance and diagnostics are all urgent — and our experience with Covid should help us.
If fewer people get infections in the first place, fewer antibiotics are needed and there’s a lower prospect for drug-resistance trib.al/Z4TUOmz
New drugs also need to be part of the solution.
While there are science challenges here, warped incentives when it comes to developing commercializing new drugs explain why there have been no truly new antibiotics in the past 30 years trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Drugs are commercially successful if pharma companies can make enough money on them to recoup their development.
The cost of developing an antibiotic is an estimated $1.5 billion, while average revenue is estimated at around $46 million a year trib.al/Z4TUOmz
An ironic twist is that doctors are discouraged from prescribing new antibiotics unless absolutely necessary.
This drives down sales and discourages investment. The price of new antibiotics also looks uncompetitive when compared to existing generics trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Of 15 new FDA-approved antibiotics in the past decade to 2020, 5 were shelved.
18 were approved and launched in the G7 and other European countries in that time, but the majority were accessible in only three nations — Britain, the U.S. and Sweden trib.al/Z4TUOmz
The challenge is ensuring access to medicines without encouraging overprescription.
A number of countries are trying to address the issue. In the U.K., a pilot program uses a Netflix model, paying for antimicrobials via a subscription trib.al/Z4TUOmz
There may be glimmers of hope on the scientific front.
Earlier this week, a group of Australian scientists said they found a way to defeat superbugs using treatments combining nanoparticles (ultrafine particles) with antibiotics trib.al/Z4TUOmz
The pandemic has taught us about the high cost of delayed action to global health crises — and the enormous gains to be made when scientific innovation is incentivized.
Our next test is to see whether we can remember those lessons trib.al/Z4TUOmz
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During each recession for the last 40 years, a sizable number of men — more than women — have left the labor force and not come back
So far, this has been true for the Covid pandemic , despite rising wages and the best job market in decades trib.al/2Ql0F7u
The male prime-age labor force participation rate — the share of men aged 25 to 54 who are either working or looking for work — has fallen over the years from 96% in 1970 to about 89% in 2020 before the pandemic trib.al/gi8P7HM
Less-educated men are the most likely to drop out of the workforce.
The rate of prime-age male high school graduates in the labor force is still 1.37 percentage points lower than before Covid. Only 84% of men without college degrees are in the labor force trib.al/gi8P7HM
It’s official: Americans are paying up for their favorite goods.
December saw the biggest 12-month gain in inflation since 1982. Procter & Gamble raised its sales outlook for the year to the end of June on the back of higher prices trib.al/ftA3lQJ
Consumers clearly aren’t balking at having to pay more for their groceries.
P&G said that so far, they were reacting to price increases more favorably than in the past.
Instead of pulling in the purse strings, consumers are trading up trib.al/9GGkW7e
A little inflation is good for manufacturers and retailers alike. The value of sales expands, and consumers get used to paying more at the check-out counter.
It’s a problem when price rises grow rampant trib.al/9GGkW7e
News that the U.S. population barely grew in 2021, together with ever-falling birthrates and the decline in immigration, raises the possibility the nation will be shrinking in the not-so-distant future.
That won't necessarily make housing more affordable trib.al/yhSPInH
If the U.S. population starts to decline, it might lead to even less housing demand in stagnant metro areas and a worse housing affordability crisis in the smaller number of places that continue to attract new residents trib.al/GDlp3Ii
A country without any population growth doesn't need to have a growing housing construction industry.
That will lead to consolidation among homebuilders and the building materials supply chain trib.al/GDlp3Ii
The European Union’s landmark decision to approve insects for human consumption was a victory for maggots and people everywhere.
It paves the way for an alternative protein source that should play a critical role in feeding a hotter, more populous world trib.al/2RC6aSi
For most consumers, the EU decision won’t translate to bugs in your burgers and mealworms in your macaroni.
Insects will play a far more integral role in human food systems going forward.
But they won’t likely be a direct form of protein trib.al/nsR7RQ7
🐛 Insects are becoming an increasingly valuable indirect food source — a feedstock for poultry, farmed fish, pork and beef which are currently fattened on environmentally costly soy and corn feeds trib.al/nsR7RQ7