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| May 7th, 2008 |
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Media Contact(s): Mark Eddington or Lindsey Stimpson, (202) 224-5251 |
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HATCH, BROWN BILL TAKES AIM AT ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT BACTERIA
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Washington – In a speech on the Senate floor today, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) talked about the Strategies to Address Antimicrobial Resistance Act that he and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) have introduced to combat the growing scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that is plaguing hospitals and patients across the U.S.
The bill (S. 2313) focuses on providing government with vital infrastructure required to better collect data, coordinate the research and conduct necessary surveillance to stop drug-resistant infections in their tracks.
“Antibiotic resistance is not a new development. The news is this: Infections that were once easily cured with antibiotics are now becoming difficult - in some cases, impossible - to treat,” Hatch told Senate colleagues. “National surveillance data and studies show antibiotic-resistant bacteria have multiplied and spread at disquieting rates in recent years … The STAAR Act lays out the framework by which we can begin to take action against this serious public health threat.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch’s complete speech on the Senate floor follows:
Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of S. 2313, the Strategies to Address Antimicrobial Resistance, or STAAR Act. I am proud to have introduced this legislation with my colleague from Ohio, Sen. Sherrod Brown. Similar legislation is being championed in the House of Representatives by Rep. Mike Ferguson and my colleague and fellow Utahn, Rep. Jim Matheson.
For more than 60 years since their discovery, antibiotics have saved millions of lives and helped patients of all populations cope with suffering related to infection. But as we have seen, our country increasingly faces a number of troubling questions about whether we are prepared to address the growing problem of drug-resistant, bacterial infections.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate resistant strains of infections have spread rapidly. While antibiotic resistance is an elevated problem for those with compromised immune systems – individuals with HIV and patients in intensive or critical care units, for instance – these infections can strike anyone. Further, this alarming trend continues to worsen and treatment options are sorely lacking.
Antibiotic resistance is not a new development. The news is this: Infections that were once easily cured with antibiotics are now becoming difficult - in some cases, impossible - to treat. National surveillance data and studies show antibiotic-resistant bacteria have multiplied and spread at disquieting rates in recent years.
For example, consider a common bacterial cause of hospital infections – Staphylococcus aureus, also called staph – which can spread to the bloodstream, heart, lungs and bones with potentially fatal results. In the early 1940s, penicillin effectively combated staph infections. However, penicillin-resistant staph bacteria were identified as early as 1942.
Subsequently, methicillin was introduced in the 1960s to fight staph-resistant infections, and shortly thereafter methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus – or MRSA - was discovered. In 1974, 2 percent of staph bacteria found in our country’s hospitals were methicillin-resistant. By 2002 the number had jumped to 57.1 percent, according to CDC data.
And it is not just happening in hospitals. Public health experts are increasingly finding infections developed in the home or community as well. Thus, infections in both settings are increasing and the resultant drug resistance shows no sign of lessening.
The recent problems with MRSA are but one striking example; we are also seeing increases in extensively-drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis. There are also numerous reports of soldiers returning home from Iraq with Acinetobacter – a resistant infection that is especially difficult to treat, and the only option is a very toxic antibiotic.
While recent media reports have raised the visibility of this issue, infectious disease doctors have been sounding the alarm for years.
In its 2004 report, “Bad Bugs, No Drugs,” the Infectious Diseases Society of America (or IDSA) said: “Drug-resistant bacterial infections kill tens of thousands of Americans every year and a growing number of individuals are succumbing to community-acquired infections. An epidemic may harm millions. Unless Congress and the Administration move with urgency to address these infections now, there is a very good chance that U.S. patients will suffer greatly in the future.”
Resistant infections lead to higher health care costs because they require more expensive treatment and care. According to estimates from the Institutes of Medicine (IOM) and the former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the economic burden placed on our national health care system as a result of resistant bacteria totals billions of dollars annually.
IDSA, which represents more than 7,500 physicians, scientists, and other health professionals who specialize in infectious diseases, has issued a stern warning and recommendations. The IOM, CDC, NIH and the FDA have also warned that drug-resistant bacteria are a serious public health threat.
It is time to act.
That is why Senator Brown and I introduced S. 2313, the STAAR Act. Our bill is not the sole answer to the complex problem of antibiotic resistance. There are several avenues to address the problem. But our bill focuses on just one: providing adequate infrastructure within the government to collect the data, coordinate the research and conduct the surveillance necessary to stop drug-resistant infections in their tracks.
We believe that jump-starting a greater, stronger, organizational focus at the Department of Health and Human Services will help our government and scientists develop an infrastructure that can grow as science develops. The STAAR Act lays out the framework by which we can begin to take action against this serious public health threat. At a minimum, we need better testing, hospital controls, medications and funding to support these efforts, particularly the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In an effort to create this organizational focus, the STAAR Act establishes a new Office of Antimicrobial Resistance at HHS in the Secretary’s office. This will give the issue the prominence and the focus it deserves.
Our bill also renews the interagency Antimicrobial Resistance Task Force, which expired in 2006. It creates an advisory board of experts to advise the new office and the Task Force, which was created in 1999 to coordinate federal efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance and was comprised of representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and also includes the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Health Care Financing Administration, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
That Task Force developed a public health action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance; however, implementation of the plan fell by the wayside. There were no personnel specifically dedicated for executing the plan because all Task Force members already had full-time responsibilities at their respective federal agencies. In short, this very important job was assigned to people who already had very important jobs! So our bill recharges that effort. These new bodies will work together to develop a plan to combat antimicrobial resistance, to keep that plan updated and to advise the Secretary on research that should be conducted.
Senator Brown and I have found that it is difficult to understand the magnitude of the problem because data are sorely lacking. Spotty data exists from many states – for example, from a hospital or a hospital chain - but not data statewide or nationwide. We need to change that. Our bill addresses that problem. The STAAR Act directs drug sponsors and appropriate government agencies to collect data and share them with the Office of Antimicrobial Resistance as the main depot for such data to facilitate interagency planning on antimicrobial resistance. That will provide us with the information we need to begin addressing the real problem of drug-resistant infections.
Finally, we authorize grants for at least 10 Antimicrobial Resistance Clinical Research and Public Health Network sites to strengthen our national capacity to develop the information necessary to assess the extent of the problem and look at effective ways to address it. Currently, there is very little capacity to quickly monitor, assess and address the spread of new or particularly resistant microbes. These network sites will work with the CDC to establish a surveillance system to allow tracking and confirmation of resistant microbes in almost real time.
Also, with support from the CDC and the NIH, these sites will conduct research to study the development of antimicrobial resistance. With data from this research, we can better prevent and control and, ultimately, treat the threat of antimicrobial resistance.
I just want to take a moment to stress the real importance of this issue. I mentioned earlier that drug-resistant infections can affect anyone at any age -- the young, the old, the healthy or ill. I have read stories about newborns, high school and college athletes and NFL football players who have battled with these resistant infections, and many of them lost the fight.
I would like to read a short excerpt from one of these stories, which I think really stresses the need for attention to this issue. This was written by a woman from New Jersey named Linda Lohsen, who lost her daughter, Rebecca, to MRSA in August 2006. Ms. Lohsen writes:
“Why do I want to share all of this with you? Because for 15 years I was a public health nurse—I heard all about the diseases that might happen. And, perhaps like some of you, I became jaded. I felt that public health was all about sounding the alarm for things that never come to pass. I’m here to tell you this is real, this does happen and it destroys lives.
Rebecca’s death has changed me, and has changed all of us. Once I believed that the dangers that were out there would stay out there. That modern medicine can avert these dangers. I no longer have the confidence in medicine that I did. I believe we have made great advances, that there are cures to be had, but I’ve watched the dismay in the faces of doctors who are supposed to be the best in their field as they told me they didn’t have any more ‘cures in their bag.’ And I know that it truly is a practice of medicine, not a finished product.”
Mr. President, federal agencies, physicians and scientists who specialize in infectious diseases, and public health nurses like Linda Lohsen, are telling us there is a pressing need to address the problem of antimicrobial resistance. We do not have time to wait, and we cannot quickly fix something that we do not yet understand. As Mrs. Lohsen wrote, the dangers that are out there will not simply stay out there. We need to be aggressive in creating a strategy to prevent loss of life or a serious public health epidemic, and lift the economic burden on our health care system caused by antimicrobial resistance.
The STAAR Act is not the whole answer, but it is a good bill and an important step in the right direction. In addition to IDSA, the STAAR Act has been endorsed by more than a dozen highly regarded professional healthcare associations. I am proud to sponsor the bill with Senator Brown, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
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