The problem with antibiotics

 While greater incentives and new funding models for antibiotic drug develooment are needed, it is unclear whether a system dependent on endlessly churning out new and ever more expensive medicines will be  economically feasible and scientifically possible in the long term. Greater priority should therefore be given to implementing more permanent solutions that are not limited to slowing resistance, which at best merely shifts the problem from today’s generation to the next, an ethically murky result. While no single approach is likely to be sufficient, governments should begin by reviving the moribund vision of using the vaccines, treatments, and other tools that are already at hand to eradicate disease and thereby stop -- not slow -- the development of resistance. Due to non-human disease vectors and other challenges, eradication may not currently be possible for every disease, but for those diseases amenable to it, the window of opportunity may fast be closing.