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.....

Tired, Poor 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.

Pen !!!! Stat !!!!!!!

In the house of the beta-lactams there are many mansions and one might think the most modest one might be occupied by the oldest beta-lactam, the only begetter , the original,  penicillin G.

But it 'taint necessarily so' .

Talking to an emergency ward nurse recently I asked her if they ever used penicillin G much these days.

"Oh my yes ",she said, but added with a smile, "we don't call it penicillin G any more."

"What do you call it then?" , I asked.

"We call it 'Pen Stat' and we say it like we might say 'Code Blue' ..."

Nice to know it is still in the medical armoire and still pulled out whenever the going gets tough and the tough get going : Pen !!!!! Stat !!!!!!

PEN ,"G" Floor, Oct 16th 1940

((This article was originally published in my discontinued blog PEN "G" in the spring of 2012 ))


The very first natural systemic penicillin ever made came out of  a small lab in the Physicians & Surgeons Medical School (P & S) Building of Columbia University in Upper Harlem, New York.


In just five weeks, start to finish, it was ready to be injected by team leader Dr Martin Henry Dawson into a young man named Charlie Aronson on October 16 1940.


It was the first ever day of America's peacetime Selective Service (a system still with us 75 years later).


A day for America to separate (and celebrate) its 1A men and to dismiss and ignore its 4F men - like Charlie.


 For Dawson, it was 25 years to the day when the news of the execution of nurse Edith Cavell first reached North America - 25 years to the day when he, along with tens of thousands of others world wide, resolved to join up to fight the wicked Huns who killed Cavell.


In Dawson's case, he first joined up as a medical orderly - so today marked his 25th year in the world of medicine.


Despite Charlie being diagnosed with a then invariably fatal disease called SBE , the semi-purified penicillin didn't seem to hurt Charlie at all.


Instead - and unexpectedly - he survived and became the presumably   ever-grateful PATIENT ONE of the Antibiotics Revolution.


The penicillin for the very first life-saving use of the 75 year old gold standard of antibiotics (injectable penicillin) was labelled PEN "G".


This was not because "G" stands for G-old Standard, or because the original penicillin was a G-olden Yellow in color or because "G" denotes Benzyl (injectable) Penicillin or because some drug company thought PEN "G" would make a catchy brand name for the horsey set.


All these things are true - completely true --- but they are all pretty latecomers to this particular party.


That very first life-saving penicillin was called PEN "G" for one very simple reason: the labs of Dr Dawson and his co-workers on his tiny team ( Karl Meyer ,Gladys Hobby and Eleanor Chaffee) were on Floor"G" of that building.


Their doubting colleagues at P&S Columbia regarded this 'pen.. (what ever) stuff' as something pretty crackpotty ; something being brewed up by that free spirit Dawson and his motley crew back in the remote North West corner of Floor "G" .


Being the first ever in the world - hell in the entire universe - to use systemic natural penicillin to save lives gives Dawson's team bragging rights to call their homebrew penicillin whatever they wanted to:


Their brew was penicillin  from "G" Floor  of  P & S : and hence familiarly know as PEN "G" , for short...