June 02, 2015
The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP) is pleased to join more than 150 major food companies, retailers and human and animal health stakeholders at the White House Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship today, June 2, 2015, and to release an interactive timeline of U.S. antibiotic use and development to coincide with the event.
Through the forum, each partner has committed to actions over the next five years to slow the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, detect resistant strains, and generally to preserve the efficacy of existing antibiotics.
CDDEP Director Ramanan Laxminarayan, who served on the working group for the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) Report to the President on Combating Antibiotic Resistance, commended President Obama on addressing the problem.
“Antibiotic resistance is a major public health threat of our time, growing in scope over the last decades,” said Laxminarayan. “We’re excited to join the forum on this critical issue, and we look forward to seeing the commitments of the government, private companies and stakeholders put into action.”
The forum, along with much of CDDEP’s work, focuses on antibiotic stewardship as a means of preserving the antibiotics that have been developed in the last seven decades, many of which are in danger of becoming less powerful due to growing antimicrobial resistance.
CDDEP’s interactive antibiotic timeline displays antibiotic introductions from 1953 to the present. Vignettes of each antibiotic cover their main uses in human medicine, and U.S. sales of each one in the hospital and retail sectors are charted from 2000 to 2010.
As part of its participation in the White House event, CDDEP has also committed to continue its work on action and research to combat antibiotic resistance worldwide through a variety of projects and research initiatives. These include CDDEP’s ongoing work in low- and middle-income countries with the Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership; ResistanceMap, an interactive platform for tracking trends in human antibiotic resistance and consumption in the United States and around the world—which will be updated and expanded as of July 2015; and continued research on topics from laboratory tests and hospital antibiotic prescribing to recent landmark studies quantifying global livestock antibiotic use.
CDDEP joins President Obama in highlighting the need for antibiotic stewardship and protection of these crucial drugs, and will continue to implement action and complete further research on the issue.
“The need to focus on antibiotic stewardship is clear; the scale of the problem of antibiotic resistance is enormous, and it is not one that will be solved by drug development alone,” said Laxminarayan.
“Our work gives the public an understanding of how antibiotic use has risen and changed in recent years, and demonstrates the need for continued focus on stewardship. By taking steps to preserve these life-saving drugs, we—and the President—are committing to saving countless lives in the years to come.”
Video of the forum is now available online, along with a White House fact sheet that explains the forum’s goals, participants and commitments made by stakeholders attending the event. Today’s Wall Street Journal carries an op-ed by CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden highlighting the need for collaboration on antibiotic stewardship from the Federal Government, drug makers, retailers and food producers.
