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IDSA supports reintroduction of GAIN Act

The Infectious Diseases Society of America supports the Generating Antibiotics Incentives Now Act introduced this week and said it is an excellent starting point to begin to address the urgent public health crisis of antibiotic resistance.

The number of new antibiotics being developed has decreased in recent years. In 1990, there were nearly 20 pharmaceutical companies with large, strong and active antibiotic research and development programs, compared with two that remain in 2011.

The legislation was introduced by US Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., and is co-sponsored by Reps. Gene Green, D-Texas; Diana DeGette, D-Colo.; Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.; Mike Rogers, R-Mich.; Ed Whitfield, R-Ky.; and John Shimkus, R-Ill. The bill is intended to encourage pharmaceutical companies to create desperately needed new antibiotics, according to an IDSA press release.

Through the Generating Antibiotics Incentives Now (GAIN) Act, Gingrey and the bill’s co-sponsors have provided a strong foundation upon which to build, IDSA leaders said, adding that the bill will likely need to be improved further to ensure that antibiotic manufacturers will have sufficient motivation to produce novel, new drugs.

“We can’t make drug companies produce new antibiotics, they have to want it,” Robert Guidos, JD, IDSA vice president of public policy and government relations, said in a press release. “Given the public health crisis we are facing, we likely will have only this one chance. We have to be sure Congress chooses a winning approach, or an additional decade may be wasted, resulting in countless lives lost.”

As a pediatric infectious diseases specialist, I have practiced through several waves of antibiotic resistance that has required new antibiotic regimens, combination antibiotic treatments and even going back to the "cupboard" to dust off antibiotics that we were no longer using in my patients. The decay in innovative new antibiotic discovery has been alarming for over two decades. Although new antibiotic development has made some progress, adaptation and antibiotic resistance is winning more battles and gaining ground on our ability as physicians to successfully treat our patients. A new national initiative to educate physicians and all prescribing health care professionals about this problem and the judicious use of antibiotics is an equally important aspect of what is needed to regain this losing initiative. Legislation and reduced use of antibiotics in meat-producing industries that flood our environment with antibiotic-resistant organisms is needed. These are two critical elements in our war against the evolving public health threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It is time for medicine, medical research and the biomedical industries to accept the "call to arms" for new antibiotic discovery and win this war. I would hate to think that in the future I would have to look at a mother's face when I tell her that we do not have anything to treat her child's life-threatening infection.

Richard F. Jacobs, MD
Infectious Diseases in Children Chief Medical Editor

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