wartime penicillin's 3Ps, 1As and 4Fs

The wartime Allies and their publics had three "P" questions to decide, each involving a choice between different kinds of penicillins, different kinds of producers to make it and different kinds of patients to receive it.

(1) Penicillin : which type of it was to be produced ?

(a) Synthetically made penicillin, produced by the civilized world's smartest most fit most 1A chemists, argued the Anglo-American scientific and political establishment,(people like Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey), it obviously had to be better, cheaper, safer, faster than that made by the primitive, simple, weak, stupid slimy, unfit 4F fungus.

(b) The microbes were a lot more complex than they were ever given credit for, counter argued Dr Henry Dawson,and with millions of years of natural-penicillin-making behind them, these so called unfit 4F fungus might just make it better, cheaper, safer, faster than the johnny-come-lately fit 1A human chemists.

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(2) Producers of penicillin : which kind should they be ?

(a) Synthetic penicillin had this advantage over natural Public Domain penicillin, said the establishment : it was completely controllable, because only licensed firms could make it. And those would be a few of the fit 1A Big Pharma firms in America and England, controlling the entire world market for this uniquely safe lifesaver.

(b) Dr Dawson argued that patented penicillin would be an expensive lifesaver for friends and simply unavailable to foes. Freely available natural penicillium spores, and its small scale and ease of production meant the stuff could be produced virtually anywhere, by anyone with a bit of microbiology skills - even the diagnostic lab at a unfit 4F general hospital in the third world. This would keep prices low and availability high, ensuring that even the poorest remotest corners of the world would see lives saved. And this worldwide competition among producers would spur innovation, lowering costs and bringing forth new variants on the original penicillin.

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(3) Patients , which kind should receive it ?

(a) With the control that patents provide, the Allied establishment argued, we can limit wartime penicillin production so as to just use it to treat the lightly wounded fit 1A Allied front line personnel, so they can quickly go back into combat, instead of our own sons losing their deferments. If some must go to Allied civilians, just give it to the 1A fit, not the unfit 4Fs like the SBE patients.

(b) If the Allies are going to deny medical aid to the dying unfit 4F, they are no better than Nazis-in-slow-motion : why then are we fighting them ? said Dawson. With the inherently world wide availability and ease of production of natural Public Domain penicillin , denied patients and their friends will simply make it themselves. And what sort of signal would that then send to other Allies, the Occupied lands, the Neutral nations and the Axis foe about the Allies' true colours ? Cheap abundant natural penicillin should made available to all of those who are dying from lack of it, because we all share a common humanity --- and this then would be the clearest possible example of why the Allied cause is worth fighting for...