Opinion: Companies must responsibly manufacture the antimicrobials society needs

In a world challenged by microbes resistant to antibiotics, many medical interventions that rely on these medicines to ward off infection — chemotherapy, organ transplants, C-sections, and hip replacements, to name a few — will continue to become riskier than they already are.

Many factors contribute to this bleak scenario. These include poor infection control, misdiagnosis, misuse and overuse of antibiotics, and the use of substandard or falsified medicines. Another key contributor is the presence of antibiotics in the environment. These can come from agricultural applications (animal and crops) and run off, from human and animal waste, and from wastewater emitted by antibiotic manufacturing plants.

Researchers from the reported last year that the concentrations of antibiotics in, a private-sector coalition that aims to provide sustainable solutions to curb antimicrobial resistance. PNECs represent antibiotic concentrations at which the alliance believes — based on the best evidence available — there will be no adverse environmental impact and at which selection pressure is minimal on microbes in the environment to mutate and develop drug resistance.