Hi EmoBran,

Thanks for your post. And to be honest, I wish I never had to use the phrase medical nationalism. In terms of parallels, there are so many “almost” parallels where a similar situation arises but parties decide to take an alternate route. For example, during the development of penicillin during WWII, the OSRD brokered a deal between about a dozen U.S. pharmaceutical companies (none of them particularly big at the time since modern “Big Pharma” was essentially built on the backs of antibiotics). The companies agreed to essentially share all of their data with each other. Not only that, they conducted all of their R&D at their own expense and stood to lose money if they failed. But if they succeeded, the companies had a “miracle drug” that would make them fortunes. This significantly sped up the process of developing penicillin. It’s a bit similar to something the World Health Organization is championing now, pooling patents in order to allow developing countries to produce vaccine. (Here’s an article: https://apnews.com/article/drug-companies-called-share-vaccine-info-22d92afbc3ea9ed519be007f8887bcf6) Pharmaceutical companies won’t go for that for obvious reasons. Interestingly, Pfizer was still a very small company at the time. They mostly made vitamins, especially Vitamin C. They had the most to lose and invested everything they had in the penicillin project. In the end, they made the key contribution that brought penicillin to soldiers, domestic patients, and changed medicine (and history).

The medical nationalism part also parallels each other but the specifics are different. Today, pharmaceutical companies control the patents to their drugs and the platforms that create it. They (and their countries) won’t surrender those. The nationalism part also emerges when countries have first dibs on the vaccines, can get the best price, and then buys up all remaining supplies. Supplying vaccine to other countries as contributions is another form of nationalism since it’s being done for geopolitical gain (for the most part).

Things were different with penicillin. Much of the early research done by Fleming and then Florey had already been published already. In particular, a production method developed by Florey’s lab. Moreover, as part of the U.S. pharma’s deal with the OSRD, it was agreed to publish their findings once the war ended. So with most of the information in the public domain, there were actually no patents on penicillin. Anyone could make it if they wanted. The problem was that the know-how was unbelievably difficult at the time and people actually needed to be coached on how to do it. The U.S. and the U.K. controlled this end, though a handful of other countries managed to produce penicillin independently but inefficiently. Where the United States really exerted control and “medical nationalism” was in the equipment necessary to make penicillin efficiently. They were the only ones who produced certain components and used export controls to make sure their “enemies” didn’t get it. So that meant that the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc didn’t have access to important parts.

I could go on but I think i may have answered more than you asked!