Matheson bill to fight 'superbugs'

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, reintroduced Wednesday a bill designed to organize a national fight against antibiotic-resistant "superbugs," such as new strains of staph.

"In Utah, the number of children being seen with aggressive infections at Primary Children's Medical Center has increased nearly 20-fold since 1989," Matheson said.

"Government health agencies must increase the effort to manage antimicrobial resistance by better addressing the cause, prevention and control, and by encouraging the development of new, effective antibiotics," he said.

Matheson added, "Antimicrobial resistance is often caused by the overuse of antibiotics, and my bill addresses this problem by providing for data collection on antibiotic use as well as research to combat so-called 'superbugs.'"

His bill would also support demonstration projects to encourage more appropriate use of existing antibiotics; create an advisory board to help the Health and Human Services secretary attack the problem; and order a blueprint for action by the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Matheson said research has shown that up to 1.2 million patients a year are infected with superbugs in hospitals, causing between 48,000 and 119,000 deaths.

— Lee Davidson