Federal Funding for the Study of Antimicrobial Resistance in Nosocomial Pathogens: No ESKAPE

The discovery of potent and safe antimicrobial agents is arguably single greatest health care advance in history. The availability of these agents rapidly reduced morbidity and mortality associated with a host of formerly fatal diseases. In addition, confidence that infections could be prevented or treated by antibiotics allowed major leaps forward in treatment of noninfectious diseases, including serious heart disease, cancers, and organ failure requiring transplants. Medical care, as we now know it, could not exist without availability of effective antibiotics. The widespread use of antibiotics has been associated with what we now know to be predictable emergence of resistance. Early confidence that…