U.S. leadership in the health care industry recently held a Capitol Hill briefing to highlight the ongoing work against antibiotic-resistant illnesses as well as the serious dangers that come from these diseases.
Antibiotic resistance is a worldwide problem. Health care leaders want to develop the best approaches for resolving the decreased effectiveness of antimicrobials. To stop the problem from spreading, member companies have exchanged ideas for helping the 700,000 annual casualties worldwide.
Among the leaders is Dr. Elaine Cox, Medicare director of infection prevention and pediatric antimicrobial stewardship at Indiana University Health. She presented an educational overview, sharing that there are approximately 50 million unneeded prescriptions written for antibiotics every year. If this continues, antibiotic resistance will continue to grow.
Dr. Michael Wong, global director of scientific affairs for infectious diseases at Merck Research Labs, emphasized the importance of measuring the growth of resistant bacteria. This means providing incentives to develop novel antibiotics that bacteria cannot yet resist.
Another presenter was Dr. Juan Ochoa, U.S. chief medical officer at Nestle Health Science, who shared that nutrition has an important part in controlling the immune system. Through “immunonutrition,” scientists can reduce surgery trauma with arginine (an amino acid) replacement therapy.
