A Bipartisan Bill Could Prevent The Next Pandemic

In Washington, Republicans and Democrats are typically at loggerheads when it comes to healthcare policy. Just consider the recent Inflation Reduction Act, which made extensive changes to Medicare and also extended Affordable Care Act subsidies. Every single congressional Democrat voted for the legislation, while every single member of the GOP voted against it.

But occasionally, a bill is such an obviously good idea, and so desperately needed, that it commands significant bipartisan support. The PASTEUR Act, co-sponsored by 31 Democrats and 31 Republicans in the House and two members of each party in the Senate, is just such a bill. It would help tackle one of the most terrifying public health threats of our time — the increasing prevalence of drug-resistant bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.

These “superbugs” already kill tens of thousands of Americans a year, of all races, occupations, and political persuasions. Superbugs can turn routine surgeries and minor injuries into life-threatening events, since an untreatable infection can quickly prove lethal. They make medical advances such as organ transplantation and immune suppression drugs for cancer and autoimmune disease extremely risky. And they pose a massive barrier to healthy aging for all, including and especially older adults at high risk, even as we celebrate the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing.

Left unchecked, superbugs could effectively end modern medicine as we know it.

The PASTEUR Act seeks to prevent such a catastrophe by strengthening antibiotic stewardship programs and jumpstarting antibiotic discovery.

Strong antibiotic stewardship programs can help reduce inappropriate antibiotic use and thus slow the development of drug-resistant pathogens. As a recent CDCreport shows, many such programs were stretched to the limit during the pandemic, as members of stewardship teams were reassigned to emergency COVID response roles or outright furloughed.

With insufficient staffing and oversight, many institutions experienced greater antibiotic use due to COVID-19. From March 2020 to October 2020, nearly 80% of patients hospitalized for the coronavirus received antibiotics, even though very few had concurrent bacterial infections. And overall, the first year of the pandemic led to a 15% increase in hospital-onset AMR infections and deaths.

The increasing overuse of antibiotics gives bacteria more chances to mutate into drug-resistant strains, thus accelerating the spread of superbugs.

Yet despite the urgent need for more and better antibiotics, the market incentives to invent these new drugs simply do not exist. No new class of antibiotics has been approved in 35 years. It should not be surprising that with these powerful and visible signals, private investors are not to taking on the immense costs of making the investments that average well over $1 billion for a single medication.

In the first-ever AMR Preparedness Index, a data-driven assessment of the top 11 economies in the world released by our organizations, the United States ranked second. But this relatively rosy ranking obscures the fact that none of our peers are well-prepared on AMR: we earned the number two spot with barely a passing a grade, earning 68 out of 100 points across a robust lineup of metrics. In the category of Innovation, the United States performed even worse, at just 52 out of 100.

The result has already been deadly. And will only get worse. AMR kills at least 35,000 Americans each year and generates more than $4.6 billion in health care costs. According to a recent report from Lancet, the global AMR toll is 1.27 million deaths annually. By 2050, it’s projected AMR could claim as many as 10 million lives each year worldwide, far outpacing the human impact of the COVID-19 pandemic — with a cost to global prosperity equivalent every year to that of the 2008 financial crisis.

Thankfully, we know how to beat AMR. We just need the political will and global cooperation. The U.S. can take the lead with the PASTEUR Act.

First, the legislation would help to reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics. By doing so, we can extend the life-saving value of the antibiotics we already have and buy time to produce new ones. The PASTEUR Act would establish a grant system for hospital antibiotic stewardship. These hospital programs will not only help fight AMR now, but also establish the human infrastructure necessary to tackle the next pandemic.

Second, the bill would create an antibiotic “subscription” financing model, with an upfront payment for new antibiotics, rather than linking reimbursement to the total volume of drug sales. This novel approach is necessary because antibiotics must be used judiciously to preserve their effectiveness. Revenue linked to sales volume fails to provide sufficient return on investment. A subscription model would harness the innovative power of the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry.

Third, passing the PASTEUR Act will itself raise the profile of AMR as a critical public health priority. We need a society-wide effort — indeed, a global effort — to improve surveillance, expand training for providers and increase support for education and awareness campaigns — exactly as President Biden has proposed in his 2023 budget request to Congress.

We have seen that American innovation and U.S. leadership can drive rapid progress on even the toughest challenges. It’s time to direct these strengths to AMR by passing the PASTEUR Act.

Dr. Emily Spivak is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and serves as Chair of the IDSA Antimicrobial Resistance Committee. She established and serves as Co-Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs at University of Utah Health and the Salt Lake City Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. Michael Hodin, Ph.D. is CEO of the Global Coalition on Aging.

Source: International Business Times

Latest Developments

We keep our members and partners in touch with the most recent updates and opinions in the worldwide dialogue on population longevity and related issues.

What Old Age Might Be Like for Today’s 30-Year-Olds

Get ready for a new old age. With the U.S. fertility rate in a decadelong slump and the life expectancy of 65-year-old Americans approaching roughly 85, our aging nation is likely to grow older by midcentury, as the ratio of young to old continues to decline. The trend is likely to upend how our society is organized, making life very different for today’s 30-year-olds when they reach their 60s compared with life for 60-year-olds now.

World Population Reaches 8bn As It Grows Older

The world’s population reached 8bn people on Tuesday and will hit 9bn in 15 years as it experiences an unprecedented surge in the number of older people, according to the latest UN data. The global fertility rate has more than halved since the 1950s to 2.3 births per woman. With mortality also falling, the number of people aged 65 and over is expected to rise from 783mn in 2022 to 1bn by 2030 and reach 1.4bn by 2043, the UN population data revealed.

Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA) Launches Cross-Sector Alliance Committed to Health Innovation at High-Level Forum on The Silver Economy

Today, the Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA), along with cross-sector stakeholders representing patient advocacy, policy, industry, and academic communities, announced the launch of the Alliance for Health Innovation at the High-Level Forum on the Silver Economy in New York. The Alliance is dedicated to establishing the importance of innovation in achieving healthy aging and health equity through investments, policy reforms, and strategic partnerships.

Japan Must Face Up to Growing Danger of Drug-resistant Germs

In the wake of more than 6.4 million COVID-19 deaths worldwide and unprecedented economic destruction, the global community has no excuse to be caught unprepared for the next pandemic. Yet right now, a devastating parallel plague is already underway and worsening. Some years, it is killing well over 1 million people, according to medical journal The Lancet.

A Bipartisan Bill Could Prevent The Next Pandemic

In Washington, Republicans and Democrats are typically at loggerheads when it comes to healthcare policy. Just consider the recent Inflation Reduction Act, which made extensive changes to Medicare and also extended Affordable Care Act subsidies. Every single congressional Democrat voted for the legislation, while every single member of the GOP voted against it. But occasionally, a bill is such an obviously good idea, and so desperately needed, that it commands significant bipartisan support. The PASTEUR Act, co-sponsored by 31 Democrats and 31 Republicans in the House and two members of each party in the Senate, is just such a bill.

Korea Must Act Now to Combat Growing AMR Threat

Public officials are overlooking one of the gravest long-term threats to the Korean people, the health system, and economy: antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Some pathogens ― bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses ― have evolved strains that resist the antimicrobial medications we currently have available to fight them. Health care professionals often must watch helplessly as patients succumb to infections that antibiotics could once have easily beaten. They know that new antimicrobials, including and especially antibiotics, could easily gain the victory ― but they have none at their disposal.

Policy Statement on the Impact of Price Negotiations on Innovation, Healthy Aging and Equity

As the CEO of the Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA) and a newly formed cross-sector Alliance for Health Innovation, we write to express our deep concern with the current legislation that allows for price “negotiations” in Medicare – a thinly veiled signal for America’s plunge into price controls that will have a devastating and adverse impact on biopharmaceutical innovation and our nations’ ability to support healthy aging.