E-drug: Attaran/Gillespie-White and PhRMA patent surveys (cont'd)
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Dear colleagues,
I have a feeling that the story about penicillin retold by James
Russo is simply besides the truth; according to Fleming's official
two biographers he had - as chief bacteriologist at St.Mary's -
ample opportunity to further develop penicillin; actually he had a
crude extract which he - unsuccessfully - applied to infected
wounds. But he did not know that pure penicillin is degraded when
taken by mouth, and he never purified the substance. Between
1929 and 1939 there was simply no scientific interest in the stuff,
until Florey and Chain at Oxford rediscovered it and made it ready
for war use.Patents had simply nothing to do with this story. And
to say that "millions of people" died in those ten years because
there was no penicillin available is a myth. The simple idea of
developing antibacterial substances was not yet rife; "Prontosil
rubrum" was introduced in 1937, and from there the concept got
hold and was further developed.
Let's not use history for the wrong purpose.
Best wishes from an old physician who wrote his first paper as a
student about the history of penicillin and streptomycin in 1958,
instigated by the then professor of botany (!) in the medical faculty.
Dr.L.Offerhaus
Koedijklaan 1a
1406 KW Bussum
The Netherlands
Phone +31-35-6923288
Fax +31-35-6923277 (number changed since 1.11.01)
E-mail: lo@euronet.nl
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