More than medicine: antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a social and political challenge that can be overcome

Abstract

Growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens modern medicine and global food security through the gradual loss of effective antibiotics and other crucial drugs and chemicals. This dispiriting but inexorable development presents daunting social and political challenges because it arises from how drugs are produced and people everywhere in the world use them. Results of monumental international efforts led by United Nations and European Union bodies to create common purpose and concerted actions against AMR since the early 2010s are so far discouraging. Declarations and plans have proliferated. But social factors such as national and local politics have stymied effective action. Neverthele..