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Antibiotic resistance is a critical threat to human and animal health. Despite the importance of antibiotics, regulators continue to allow antibiotics to be used in low-value applications --subtherapeutic dosing in animals, and spraying tobacco plants for blue mold, for example --where the benefits are unlikely to outweigh the costs in terms of increased resistance. We explore the application of a user fee in non-human uses of antibiotics. Such a fee would efficiently deter low value uses while also providing funding to support the development of the urgently needed new antibiotics.

No abstract