In TED Radio Hour’s series Finite, speakers discuss ways we might be able to innovate our way out of a finite landscape in a world with limited resources.
In Part 3 of the series, director and senior fellow at the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, Ramanan Laxminarayan, gave a thoughtful talk on how the use of antibiotics started out as what could be considered a medical miracle but has become a global threat.
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As part of his work, he has advised the World Health Organization and World Bank on malaria treatment, vaccination strategies and the economic burden of tuberculosis and other diseases.
In this talk, he acknowledges that this is a subject that has been touched on extensively thus far, but the significance of the problem is so great that it deserves even more attention.
Despite the antibiotic resistance issue prevalence in countries all over the world, Laxminarayan points out that this is not just a medical issue. Some economic principles can be put in place.
“It turns out there is something fundamental about antibiotics that make them different from other drugs, which is if I misuse antibiotics, not only am I affected, but others are affected as well,” he says. “In the same way as if I choose to drive to work or take a plane to go somewhere, the costs I impose through global climate change go everywhere, and I don’t necessarily take these costs into consideration. This is what economists might call the problem of the commons.”
A Personalized Approach to Medication Nonadherence
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
The problem is that individuals, hospitals and entire health systems are not considering the cost that is imposed on others by the way antibiotics are used, he points out.
He discusses how the problem is analogous to fuel and energy consumption, and how essentially, this is a process of slowing down co-evolution. One approach could be taking emissions taxes as an example for future antibiotic regulation.
Many are looking for solutions for the current dilemma, and a different, somewhat outside perspective might be what’s required to control the issue.
