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posted by on Thursday December 01 2016, @04:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the scientists-in-the-making dept.

The ABC news website (an Australian national news service funded by the Australian government) reports on a group of high school students from Sydney Australia who have managed to recreate the active ingredient in Daraprim for a mere $20.

Daraprim has received a lot of coverage recently after Turing Pharmaceuticals who owns the patent, initially raised the price of the drug from $13.50 to $750.00, though they have since stated that the price will be reduced.

From the article:

For $US20, a group of high school students has created 3.7 grams of an active ingredient used in the medicine Daraprim, which would sell in the United States for between $US35,000 and $US110,000.

Pyrimethamine, the active ingredient in Daraprim, treats a parasitic infection in people with weak immune systems such as pregnant women and HIV patients.

In August 2015, the price of Daraprim in the US rose from $US13.50 per tablet to $US750 when Turing Pharmaceuticals, and its controversial then-chief executive Martin Shkreli, acquired the drug's exclusive rights and hiked up the price.

Since then, the 17-year-olds from Sydney Grammar have worked in their school laboratory to create the drug cheaply in order to draw attention to its inflated price overseas, which student Milan Leonard said was "ridiculous".


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:26PM (#435734)

    For adults, it's harder, but still possible:
    3. Put adults in situations where they have to work together closely with people who don't look like them. A classic example of this is the military: It's really hard to hate people for their skin color when someone with that skin color saved your life in combat.

    A good family friend commanded a tank battalion in the Korean war. He always maintained that the US Army was the first large organization to be desegregated, by order of President Truman...and that it was a very good thing as far as he was concerned. fwiw, he was white, and after his service became a lawyer specializing in wills and estates.

    Never bothered to look his claims up until now, but here is a reference,
          https://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/desegblurb.htm [trumanlibrary.org]

    President Truman had been examining the issue of segregation in the armed forces since at least 1947, when he appointed the President's Committee on Civil Rights. By January 1948, internal White House memos indicated that the President was determined to end military segregation by executive order. However, it was not until the delegates at the 1948 Democratic National Convention called for a liberal civil rights plank that included desegregation of the armed forces that Truman felt comfortable enough to issue Executive Order No. 9981 on July 26. The order stated that "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." The order also established the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and opportunity in the Armed Services (Fahy Committee).

    Naturally, there was resistance to this order within the military. Staff officers from all branches protested anonymously and sometimes even openly to integration. The Fahy Committee worked with the different branches of the military to ensure that the armed forces instituted integration in their recruitment and unit composition practices. Full integration did not come until the Korean War however, when heavy casualties forced segregated units to merge for survival.

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