The
Guardian UK is
reporting that antibiotic resistant 'superbugs' could cause at least 10 million deaths a year and cost global economy 100 trillion by 2050. That is the conclusion of a
new study commissioned by UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
UK economist Jim O’Neill says "antimicrobial resistance is a more certain threat than climate change in the short term".
Reacting to this report, Nick Stern, President of the British Academy, IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the LSE and former Chief Economist of the World Bank, said:
"Wise policy looks ahead and tries to manage risks, particularly the big ones. There can be no doubt now that antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest that we, all of us, face. The work of the group led by Jim O'Neill is of profound importance and this paper shows very convincingly the great scale of the risks, in terms of human lives and the economy, that are posed by this deeply worrying phenomenon."
Civil Eats
According to a report commissioned by David Cameron, the UK’s prime minister, drug-resistant infections of “superbugs”could lead to at least 10 million extra deaths a year and cost the global economy up to $100 trillion by 2050. The researchers models looked at three bacteria–K pneumoniae, E. coli, and Staphylococcus aureus–and found that antibiotic resistance will likely hit the developing world the hardest. A whopping 25 percent of the deaths that will take place in Nigeria are forecast to be caused by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and “Africa as a continent ‘will suffer greatly,’” the report warns. Both India and China are predicted to take significant hits as well (2 million and 1 million deaths a year respectively.)
We may
already have crossed the threshold where fighting antibiotic resistance will require extraordinary means and effort. But, at least, there is some meaningful action which the
LA Times is
reporting coming from local actions such as the recent news that the Los Angeles Unified School District and five others major urban school districts in New York, Chicago, Miami Dade and Orlando's Orange County will be restricting purchasing of chicken served in school lunch programs which have been raised using antibiotic laced feed. With
80% or four-fifths of all antibiotics in US given to raise livestock including chickens, this is a significant beginning to addressing the major contributor to antibiotic resistance in US.
In part because of its ties to antibiotic resistance, The Los Angeles Unified School District has made a noteworthy move away from chicken from farms that administer antibiotics to their animals. Los Angeles joins the five other school districts, New York, Chicago, Miami-Dade, and two counties in Orlando, Fla.in this choice. LA Unified spends $4.8 million on 2.3 million pounds of chicken a year, a fact that has the potential to radically increase demand for chicken raised with higher standards. But it’s hard to say how many schools will actually enact the change in the short term, since, as the LA Times reports, “if food vendors cannot supply the full volume of chicken under that standard, they will be required to submit a written plan on when they can meet it.”
Why doesn't the US put its money into fighting real crisis such as antibiotic resistance? Could it be that our congress is in the pocket of the Big Agriculture/Industrial Meat industry? You betcha!