The NYT reports today on a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control that doctors abandon a class of antibiotics used for treating gonorrhea because the bacteria has developed resistance. This is an interesting, but hardly unique story. The article notes that drug resistant strains of tuberculosis have also developed in recent years. The development of more resistant strains of bacteria will always be a risk, but the patent system is likely to magnify the problem since a patentholder has a very strong incentive to push the use of its drug during the period of patent monopoly, with no regard for the fact that overuse may hasten the development of drug resistant strains and a greater future public health problem. Of course, public health experts could try to counter the promotional efforts by the pharmaceutical industry, but no right thinking conservative would ever believe that government bureaucrats will win out over the private sector. It would have been useful in the NYT had mentioned the economic aspects of this public health problem.
--Dean Baker
