Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

by John Green

But there is limited profit motive.[*2] The underinvestment in new classes of drugs to fight bacterial illnesses is the central cause of growing antibiotic resistance.[*3] It’s easy to blame patients or providers or pharmaceutical companies, but really all of humanity has collectively chosen not to put more of our shared resources toward new treatments for disease. Some of this can be chalked up to our economic systems—the newest antibiotics will not be prescribed as often, meaning they won’t be as lucrative as, say, developing a drug that hundreds of millions will take to control blood pressure. This is why when new antibacterial drugs do come out, they are often priced very highly.[*4]