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A recent study in the American Journal of Infection Control reported that a California hospital experienced an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a dangerous type of bacteria classified as a high priority by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. More troubling, the researchers found that the strain in the California hospital carried a gene called NDM-1, a molecular shield that helps render even our most powerful antibiotics useless. The CDC estimates that a handful of antibiotic-resistant bacteria caused more than 2.5 million infections in the U.S. in 2019, killing 30,000 people and costing the health system nearly $5 billion. These types of policies incentivize investment, and they restore trust — the trust that the rules of the market will apply to antibiotics again.