When your life hangs in the balance because of bacterial infection and all else has failed, hospitals reach for Plan G - a needleful of Penicillin G - 87 years old and still our most potent , safest and yet by far the cheapest lifesaver.
Big Pharma practically giving away its most potent and yet safest lifesaver - that hardly sounds like the Big Pharma you and I know --- and hate !
Penicillin still remains un-patentable - still remains made naturally by tiny bugs in a bottle , not by human chemists in a factory.
It still finds its main use as an internal lifesaver not as an external antiseptic for cuts and scrapes.
And it still is a widely available lifesaver - regardless of skin color or lack of income .
Partly because it is cheap because it is un-patentable so no one firm or nation can control its production but mostly because making it available for all is a longstanding tradition since the last year of WWII.
But if Alexander Fleming , that Presbyterian-raised Scot from Old Scotland had had his will, none of this good news would have happened.
Thankfully, another Presbyterian-raised Scot , but this time from New Scotland (Henry Dawson), was there to thwart his will ...
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