FAQs
Yes. Vaccines are very safe. All vaccines approved or authorized by the FDA have gone through a rigorous testing and clinical trial process, involving highly-trained scientists and thousands of volunteers from diverse backgrounds. For more information, visit the CDC website.
Wide use of vaccines has helped us virtually eliminate many diseases like whooping cough, polio, measles, rubella, and more. But because these diseases aren’t entirely eradicated, we must continue to vaccinate in order to eliminate opportunities for spread. For more information, visit the CDC website.
Yes. According to the CDC, scientific data shows that getting several vaccines at the same time does not cause chronic health problems. For more information, visit the CDC website.
Like any medication, vaccines may cause some side effects but most of these are very minor. This can include soreness where the shot was given or a low-grade fever. It is not possible to get the disease through a vaccine. For more information, visit the CDC website.
Antibiotics and antifungals treat and cure infections, so are critically important to people’s health and modern medicine. Pathogens resistant to the medicines we have now are growing in number and strength and jeopardize people’s health and the entire health system. While treatment advances for serious chronic diseases accelerate, we are losing ground in our ability to fight common bacteria increasing the risk of life-threatening infections. Every time people take antibiotics, some bacteria may survive, multiply, and evolve to become resistant to existing treatments. This means that new resistance to our current treatments continuously emerge, rendering many existing drugs ineffective and shrinking our treatment arsenal.
Without effective treatments for drug-resistant infections, patients lose not just protections against infectious illnesses such as pneumonia, but also other advances of modern medicine that rely on the ability to effectively treat and prevent hospital and community-acquired infections. These medical advances include organ transplantation, cancer chemotherapy, major surgery, and care of preterm infants and immunocompromised patients, among others. Even routine procedures and surgeries involve greater risk from the rise in resistant infections.
Re-establishing a robust pipeline to build up our arsenal of antibimicrobial treatments is critical given that hard-to-treat bacteria and fungi continue to emerge. We must act, and act now.
The world recently witnessed what happens when we don’t have treatments to address highly contagious, infectious diseases. Because of the lack of sufficient financial incentives in the current system, the necessary investments are not being made in the research and development of new antimicrobial treatments. We must act now to overcome obstacles that have deterred this investment to date.
Treatments for resistant infections are extremely difficult to develop, and opportunities to recoup development costs and to make a return on investment are limited. Currently, it takes 23 years for a company to make a profit on a new antibiotic. Important efforts to preserve the effectiveness of new antibiotics through stewardship mean limiting the purchase and use of newly developed medicines.
Putting policies into place to ensure that academic and industry scientists are incentivized to create a sustained and robust pipeline of new, novel anti-bacterial and anti-fungal therapies that save lives is critical to our economy. Finding opportunities that educate patients, engage investors, and empower innovators is more important than ever in the fight against infectious disease.
We all can play a role in addressing and slowing the pace of antimicrobial resistance. At an individual level, it starts with hygiene and thorough adherence to treatment when antibiotics, antifungals, or antivirals are prescribed. Getting recommended vaccines also helps reduce the need for antibiotics to treat vaccine-preventable illnesses and related complications. For health care providers and facilities, public awareness, sanitation, early point-of-care diagnostics, clinical guidelines and good stewardship are important factors. For policymakers, passing legislation that can create the environment to encourage investment in new treatment options is essential. Our government should help incentivize innovation by:
Supporting investment in early stage research and development of new medicines,
Advancing efficient regulatory development and review pathways,
Establishing payment and reimbursement policies that address barriers to appropriate use and stabilize the market, and
Developing solutions to stimulate investment by creating an attractive market.