FDR and Churchill heat Hitler and Tojo and then they try and take on Henry Dawson

Martin "Henry" Dawson, a dying doctor.

A lapsed Scottish Presbyterian, but of the old school, the kind  not easily stopped, not when they believed they were duty-bound to do what was right.

A lapsed Calvinist on a catholic mission.

 For Dawson's goal was "Penicillin-for-all".

Particularly at the height of a Total War in which - if you believed the newspapers - his Allied nation opposed the Nazis mostly for their nasty habit of mentally dividing the world in the deserving elect and the non-deserving non-elect.

Of course, in fact,  much of the Allied world mentally did the same - and publicly opposing Dawson's goal merely exposed this awkward fact.

Poor Frank and Winnie when they took on Henry : they simply never stood a chance....

better for America winning friends : A-Bomb or Penicillin-for-all ?

How was the post-war Pax Americana to be best created ?

Was it best to intimidate other nations into being friendly to America by reminding them who held the A-Bomb, and held it alone ?

Or was it best to freely give away 'Penicillin-for-all' , to hope to win other nations' respect by this example of America's open-hearted generosity ?

In other words, was it best for America to project itself as the Gordon Gekko side of Manhattan and reward the efforts of those 'Masters of the Universe', Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves ?

Or was it best to project itself as the Emma Lazarus side of Manhattan and exalt the efforts of the smallest Manhattan Project , that of Henry Dawson, Karl Meyer, Eleanor Chaffee and Gladys Hobby ?

America, itself Janus-faced, never could make up its mind and ended up doing a little of both in the years since 1945 .

But now - post 9/11 and Ramzi Yousef- it isn't too late in the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections for both New York-based Hilary and Kristen to look at this old question again ....

The Manhattan Project for the small

Gather 'round kiddies, as teacher tells you how America burned a hundred thousand children to a crisp, along with their mommies and daddies and grandmas.

Oh wait ---------- darn !! ------ there's a subtitle !

Ah hem.

Now children , have you ever been so sick that you have to go to the doctor ? Well sometimes children are so very sick that the doctor even comes to their house - and at top speed to.

Tired, Hurt or Huddled

Roche's Avastin-for-all versus Henry Dawson's Penicillin-for-all , what's the difference ?

Avastin is not in short supply and Roche sells it to all, regardless of race gender et al.

Penicillin G : ditto,ditto .

But Avastin costs $100,000 a year and only extends life an average of 4 months.

In bulk, Penicillin G is only about $1 for a two week long life-saving treatment.

And that should permanently stop a life-threatening bacterial infection cold in its tracks .

In addition, Penicillin G's wide use due to its extremely low, low cost helps prevent reserve pools of virulent strains from remaining in patients ordinarily too poor to purchase necessary but expensive medicine.

Ah, the twin miracle of The Miracle Drug.

First, its continuing non-toxicity and efficiency, 85 years after it was first discovered .

Secondly, its extremely low cost which allows it to provide a sort of quasi-Herd Immunity for the rest of us from age-old contagious bacterial infections.

If Gordon Gekko was a drugs salesman, he'd sell Avastin at a big mark-up; if Emma Lazarus was a drugs salesman , she'd sell bulk Penicillin G, at cost ....

World's most effective lifesaver is also the most beloved AND the cheapest

That's not at all like Big Pharma, the world's least beloved industry.

Usually their effective lifesavers cost a big fortune and their ineffective ones merely cost a small fortune.

I'm today's go-to-expert on yesterday's battle over "penicillin-for-all" - by default

While I consider myself the world's leading expert on the wartime battle over the principle of penicillin for all, I also recognize I am also probably the only person in the world who gives a tinker's damn over that 75 year old battle.

A pity that.

Because there are still lessons for today in that old battle, particularly with regards to drugs now costing cancer patients $300,000 a year per person.

Remembering when PENICILLIN was as expensive as Avastin is today

In 1943, penicillin-at-cost (at least so claimed Big Pharma and no one ever asked for or got firm proof as to their accuracy) was sold to the US government for $20 per 100,000 units .

The most meaningful way to describe the effect on a family's budget in 1943, if they had had the chance to actually buy the stuff, is to ask how it would have taken them at work to earn that $20.

In 1943, the median male wage earner took about a week to earn $20, the median female about two weeks.

In today's terms, that meant it would cost about $1000 for that dose of penicillin.

Admittedly, that single dose back then in 1943 saved many a life -cured ! - and they didn't need to have another dose again.

By contrast , today's Avastin is a fairly costly cancer drug that can extend life in some terminal patients , but only for an additional four months on average , and at a potential cost of $100,000 a year and up.

To work, it has to be taken constantly every 2 weeks until the patient either dies of the cancer or of old age.

But there are some bacterial diseases ,then and now, that were invariably fatal unless given enormous seeming doses of penicillin  - often the penicillin must being given every few hours, for periods of several months.

Still the cures of even supposedly fatal cases of extraordinarily persistent and antibiotic resistant endocarditis can happen - but it has taken up to a kilo of pure penicillin to do so.

That is equal to 17,000 doses of Penicillin G, each of of 100,000 units in strength !

That is $340,000 in 1943 dollars at 1943 prices and would have  taken 340 years for the average male worker back then to pay for it !

But in the 1943 era, the actual maximum amount of penicillin ever give to an endocarditis patient was a still quite hefty 15 million units  - costing a median 1943 worker 3 solid years of labour to buy.

Three years work for the median worker today in 2013 is at least $100,000 - IE, the average cost for Avastin patients and or their insurers, private and government.

So in 1943, the miracle drug Penicillin G was as expensive for some patients as Avastin and other miracle cancer drugs are today.

But what is the real current at-cost/ bulk price of 100,000 units of Penicillin G today,  in 2013  dollars ?

That would be 2 cents : and would take today's worker not one or two weeks of 40 hour each to pay for it, but rather only about 2 seconds to earn !

Clearly Penicillin G has gone from being the most expensive lifesaver in 1943 to being by far the cheapest lifesaver in 2013 - a lifesaver cheaper than water, a lifesaver too cheap to meter.

The Official History version of why it happens credits those wonderful people at Big Pharma.

If you find that at all credible, you really shouldn't be reading this blog.....