The Antibiotics Crisis: The Health Care and Human Costs of Drug Resistance

As part of a series of events sponsored by Kaiser Permanente focused on health care costs and affordability in the age of health care reform, the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and School of Public Health present a provocative panel discussion on the antibiotics crisis, its roots in our methods of industrialized livestock production, and the associated costs to the health care system. This event will be webcast live and posted afterwards for later viewing.

As bacteria rapidly outmaneuver our ability to control them, we are increasingly vulnerable to outbreaks of drug-resistant pathogens. The use of antibiotics in livestock production is driving the growth of this resistance and also appears to be contributing to our obesity epidemic--all of which promise dramatically higher health care and human costs unless the situation is addressed.

Introduction: David Tuller, DrPH, lecturer and academic coordinator, UC Berkeley MPH/MJ program.

Moderator: Dr. John Swartzberg, UC Berkeley professor of infectious diseases and editorial director of The Berkeley Wellness Letter and BerkeleyWellness.com.

Panelists (from left to right above)

Maryn McKenna, science journalist and author of an upcoming book on the history of antibioticsuse in livestock production.

Dr. Lee Riley, UC Berkeley professor of infectious diseases.

Michael Pollan, UC Berkeley professor of journalism.

Dr. Piero Garzaro, regional infectious diseases chair for The Permanente Medical Group Northern California.