Letter to FDA and CMS: Stewardship Essential in Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

On Aug. 7, Pew and 26 health organizations sent a letter to Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, with recommendations that address the public health crisis of antimicrobial resistance.

In the letter, the organizations strongly support requiring antibiotic stewardship programs as a condition of participation in Medicare for all acute care hospitals and long-term care facilities. They also encourage requiring hospitals to report data on antibiotic use and resistance to the National Healthcare Safety Network.

These measures are important, the organizations say, because “bringing new antibiotics to market, while necessary, will only have limited impact if we do not simultaneously advance policies to protect those antibiotics from the development of resistance.”