Posted by David Hyman:
Only Two Things Scare Me:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_09-2009_08_15.shtml#1249940972
And one of them is antibiotic resistance. Along with my regular
co-author, [1]Bill Sage, I�ve just sent off a new article to the law
reviews, titled [2]Combating Antimicrobial Resistance: Regulatory
Strategies and Institutional Capacity.
Antibiotic resistance is a major public health problem. Every year,
two million Americans acquire bacterial infections in the hospital,
and 70% of those infections are resistant to at least one antibiotic.
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staph aureus) has attracted the most media
attention: the CDC [3]estimated that MRSA caused 94,000
life-threatening infections, and 18,650 deaths in 2005.
Congress and many states are currently debating legislation to reduce
antibiotic resistance. The article blends regulatory theory and
comparative institutional analysis to explain how we can use
regulation to lower the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacterial
infection, rationalize the use of existing antibiotics, and encourage
innovation. We canvass the full range of regulatory options that are
available, and explain the compatibility or incompatibility of
particular regulatory strategies with existing legal and regulatory
systems.
Here�s the abstract of the article:
Amnesia is a common, important, but rarely noted side effect of
antibiotics. Apart from medical historians, few recall the severe
morbidity and mortality once associated with acute bacterial
infection. However, decades of antibiotic overuse and misuse have
compromised the long-term availability and efficacy of these
life-saving therapies. If designed and implemented appropriately,
regulation can reduce the risk of bacterial infection, reserve
antibiotics for circumstances where they are necessary, and
rationalize the use of the most powerful agents. Regulation of
antibiotic resistance can be justified, and should be guided, by
both efficiency and fairness. A range of regulatory options are
available - some information-based, some incentive-based, some
command-and-control - each of which has indications, strengths, and
weaknesses. A desired set of regulatory strategies must then be
matched with the appropriate legal and regulatory institutions. A
renewed focus on regulatory and institutional design has
significant potential to reduce antibiotic-resistant bacterial
infections and increase the effective life of existing and new
antibiotics.
You can download a copy of the article [4]here.
References
1. http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/profile.php?id=ws2234
2. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1436154
3. http://www.cdc.gov/Features/MRSA/
4. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1436154
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