Thank you for “Fungus Immune to Drugs Quietly Sweeps the Globe” (“Deadly Germs, Lost Cures” series, front page, April 7), on the threats of infections that have grown resistant to the medicines developed to treat them.
As an infectious diseases physician, I, too, often see the impacts of infections that can no longer be readily controlled. As the article notes, it is a crisis that is only worsening, and public health and individual lives are at stake.
It is also threatening medical progress. Without greatly stepped-up research toward new antimicrobial drugs as well as careful use of the drugs we have, we face the risk of seeing gains against cancer and other serious conditions lost when we cure patients only to lose them to resistant infections.
I hope the article serves as a wake-up call to members of Congress. A meaningful investment and response across federal agencies will be critical to turning the trajectory of the threat the article describes.
PHAGElogist 