President Obama has announced that he would like to increase the amount of money the United States spends on fighting antibiotic-resistant bacteria. He wants to raise the amount to double what it is now, bringing it up to $1.2 billion.

The money would be used to combat the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and to prevent it. On Tuesday, the White House released a fact sheet that called the issue “one of the most pressing public health issues facing the world today.”

The fact sheet went on to indicate some of the reasons why it is so important to raise the budget on this topic to the new level. It stated that the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria causes medical staff to always be concerned about infections when performing a wide range of everyday modern surgical procedures. The potential for problems with these bacteria affect procedures ranging from the more common joint replacements to the more complex organ transplants.

In the President’s fact sheet, it stated that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have estimated that antibiotic-resistant bacteria affect many Americans. Every year there are a minimum of two million illnesses and as many as 23,000 deaths caused by these bacteria.

Because the bacteria are resistant to many modern antibiotics, the infections cannot be treated quickly. This greatly increases the medical costs involved and affects national economics. Health care costs have been raised by at least $20 billion because of this problem. It is also estimated that $35 billion is lost because employees cannot be productive during those hospitalizations and sick days.

The request for $1.2 billion is for the 2016 budget. A little more than half of this amount, $650 million, will go to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

The money will be used to develop new types of antibiotics and new methods to be able to diagnose bacteria involved in infections. It will also go toward understanding and characterizing drug resistance.

Statements from the director of the CDC, Dr. Tom Frieden, indicate that there is a problem with the antibiotic-resistant bacteria because patients often come to a hospital with one health problem and leave with another one. These super-bacteria, he said, has the ability to “harm or kill everyone in the country.”

President Obama’s request for a larger budget in this area follows an earlier five-year plan calling for putting a curb on antibiotic resistance, and increased efforts to deal with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In that plan, he stated that these steps are necessary to protect our children and grandchildren.

Super-bacteria, as they are often called, will not only affect those getting surgeries, but also those in the nursing homes. Their immune system often being weakened through age, sickness, or even medications and medical treatments, clearly poses a real threat to seniors.

Venki Ramakrishnan, a Nobel prize winning chemist who was interviewed by Scientific American, said that new antibiotics need to be developed. There has only been two new ones put on the market since the 1960’s, and they are variants of antibiotics already developed. New forms need to be discovered, he said, and there also needs to be limited use, because using them too often is what created the superbugs in the first place.