[ExI] The post-antibiotic era

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2013-11-17 19:33, BillK wrote:
> The tone of your comment seems to indicate that you think it is not a
> really serious problem. (?)
>
> The medics, on the other hand, seem to be panicking about it.

Yes, but that is because they do not have the big picture. They look at 
mortality rates and deaths around them, rather than mortality 
distributions and existential risk.

 From my ivory tower resistent bacteria are a stinking, nasty cesspit in 
the landscape, but not anything like the bioweaponry dragon in the 
synthbio mountains, the gleaming nuclear silos, or that dust cloud on 
the horizon that might be bad AI. Yes, per average year resistant 
bacteria is likely to kill more people than the weird threats I watch 
for, but they are not going to end humanity. They are just bad news like 
climate change.

The insurance people are worried because they see rising costs (at least 
health and life; I don't know if pension is quietly smug). But they are 
down in that small skyscraper beneath the tower, and have clearly said 
they don't mind the dragons.

> To rephrase your comment about 'few economic incentives', that means
> that the giant pharma companies don't see big enough profits to
> justify them developing new drugs. As the report says, they stopped
> developing new antibiotics in 1987. So presumably they are already
> making big enough profits on existing drugs (which are now failing to
> cure infections).

No, existing antibiotics do not give big profits since they are out of 
patent and the market is full of generics. The problem is that the cost 
of developing a new drug is enormous in the current risk-averse testing 
climate, and antibiotics does not tend to pay well. If you add in that 
emergency drug licensing is likely for antibiotics in countries with 
problems, there is even less incentive.

> So we will have to rely on government-funded research for new drugs.
Either that or philanthropic foundations.

Or we could lobby for a bit less risk-averse FDA, EMEA etc?

-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University