How wartime penicillin's American miracle cures were censored - and why

From early in 1942, American medical journal editors and authors joined scientific journal editors and authors already being "self censored".

Howard Florey sole hero of 1944 American national radio play on Penicillin

Here, Howard Florey rules !

Du Pont's Cavalcade of America  on NBC was a very well financed American national radio and later tv show, popular before and after WWII (1935-1957), that as Marcel Lafollette points out , often featured heroes from medicine and science.

Not surprising then that the series featured an half hour show on "The Story of Penicillin" as soon as the censors would let it : which interestingly enough was April 24th 1944  --- starring Howard Florey as the one-and-only who brought us the miracle of penicillin !

The 180 degree flip of wartime penicillin : from secret weapon of war to public weapon of propaganda

War is not at all like the playing fields of Eton , many reports to the contrary.

Both sides get advance notice of the time, place and nature of the activity in sports - and there is a strictly enforced set of rules.

By contrast, a successful military offensive operation is far more than half won if it is kept secret to the last moment and beyond.

Was there a Parran-Hearst Telegram ? (You provide the penicillin, I'll provide the pictures)

"Operator, get me Washington, tell 'em I'm from Hearst..."

There is no firm evidence that Citizen Hearst ever sent that infamous telegram to the famous war artist Frederic Remington in Cuba.

We all know which telegram:  the one where Remington is sent out to illustrate the ongoing civil war in Cuba, but finds all is quiet and begs to go home.

Hearst supposedly telegraphs him to stay : "(If) you furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war."

The Allied battle for the world's 'hearts and minds' : NS-born Henry Dawson's patient-penicillin vs OSRD war-penicillin

Army is - wrongly - blamed for her SBE death

The idea that successful American governments need first to win over the 'hearts and minds' of people, before they rush to impose their objectives by legal and military fiat is an old, old , old one.

Presidents John Adams used the phrase "hearts and mind" in this sense early in the 19th century, long before Presidents FDR, Kennedy and Johnson made it famous in the 20th century - and before recent presidents George W Bush and Obama dragged it out of the archives to use in this century.

(Houses of) PEER REVIEW

   The House of Lords is a chamber of sober second thoughts, where men and women (Peers) (aged in visage and grey in hair) review proposed new ideas, from the vantage point of honored expertise and authority.
   This sounds a lot like the National Academy of Science (America's NAS)
which is a perpetually self-appointing/self-anointing body of aged scientists, much honored for their expertise and authority, pronouncing upon the gravest scientific questions facing the nation.
   Britain's Royal Society does much the same and most of the world's prominent scientific nations employ a similar model.
   "Peer" is such an ambiguous word.
   One is judged by a jury of one's peers, for example : bog-ordinary citizens like yourself, with no occupational or professional interest in crime or justice.
   But the aristocracy are Peers, peers with a capital "P" , and they are presumed to be anything but ordinary, in fact the very antithesis of ordinary.
   A scientist's proposed journal article, grant request or application for tenure is judged by "peer-review".
   In theory, it is via a jury of people very much like the scientist. In practice the jury is often made up of Peers - scientists much superior in ranking to the supplicant scientist.
   Top scientists, and the world's top professionals, are not just the aristocracy of their world.
   They are the aristocracy of our world : the aristocracy of the world's successful response to the trauma of the 1832 Reform Act and similar legislation.
    And to the rise of the Romantic Era, with its threat of the untutored,un-peer-reviewed, Genius and un-peer-reviewed self-made entrepreneur/celebrity....