Drug resistant infections threaten economy

WORLD

Drug-resistant infections threaten economy

By Annie Baxter December 26, 2016 | 4:22 PM

A pharmacist fills a prescription bottle of antibiotics. - Joe Raedle/Getty Images Antibiotics are the linchpin of modern medicine. But their overuse in humans and animals has led to the development of microbes that are resistant to them. Now, it's getting harder to treat common infections like gonorrhea.

“People don't understand that when a person dies of multi-organ failure in a hospital, that was because the antibiotics didn't work for them,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy.

Globally, drug-resistant infections claim 700,000 lives a year. The scale of the problem prompted the United Nations to recently hold a forum on how to mitigate drug resistance.

If the human toll isn't reason enough to do so, there's also a compelling economic one. According to the World Bank, resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs could cause global economic damage on a par with

the 2008 financial crisis. In a recent report, the World Bank spelled out a worst-case scenario where, by 2050, drug resistance would cut annual global GDP by nearly four percent.

Tim Evans, senior director of Health, Nutrition and Population at the World Bank Group said low-income countries would be hit hardest.

“That would mean an additional 28 million people falling into extreme poverty by 2050,” he said.

Evans said the global economy would suffer because the labor supply and livestock production would falter at the same time health care costs would spike.

Better antibiotic stewardship is needed to combat the problem, according to Elizabeth Jungman at the Pew Charitable Trusts. But she said we also need pharmaceutical companies to come up with new antibiotics but refrain from marketing them heavily so as to prevent their overuse.

“You really want to lock those in the medicine cabinet and wait until you really need them to use them,” she said.

Follow Annie Baxter at @anniebaxter123.

BUSINESS

Spotify says "it's been weird" to 2016

By Lizzie O'Leary and Adhiti Bandlamudi December 26, 2016 | 3:51 PM Drug­Resistant Infections Threaten Economy

General view of the atmosphere at 'The Evening Before'- a pre-White House Correspondents' Dinner party hosted by Eric Podwall and Spotify at Chaplin's Restaurant on April 24, 2015 in Washington, DC. - Photo by Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for Eric Podwall) Spotify, the music streaming app, launched a global outdoor ad campaign with the tagline "Thanks 2016, It's been weird." The ad campaign uses data from listeners and pop culture topics relevant to events in 2016. We talked to Seth Farbman, the Chief Marketing Officer of Spotify to hear about how they turned data into a selling point.

On collecting data on its users:

Obviously, we follow all the most strict and data and privacy guidelines. The truth is, if you're using data to Drug­Resistant Infections Threaten Economy help the music fan and to help the music customer, that's a fair exchange. If you're using data to give them information, even about another product, that's of value to them. But you cannot break that trust. You always have to have empathy and caring for the customer. Advertisers should demand that their messages, their offers, are only going to people who have interest in them.

On doing this campaign close to the time the company might go public:

Well, even if you are not considering that, I think it's a lovely and charming thing to do. I mean, look, this is music. This is supposed to be fun. And absolutely, we want to reinforce that we represent the best community of music fans anywhere. And however that relates to a business model can only be a good thing.

Follow Lizzie O'Leary at @lizzieohreally.

Drug­Resistant Infections Threaten Economy