This article about an ordinary citizen with a 3D printer:
Christian Fracassi came to the aid of an overwhelmed Brescia hospital that ran out of breathing tubes for an intensive care machine on Saturday. Doctors raised the alarm after their regular supplier said they could not produce the valves on time – forcing them to come up with an alternative solution… word soon reached Fracassi, a pharmaceutical company boss in possession of the coveted [3D printer] machine. He immediately brought his device to the hospital and, in just a few hours, redesigned and then produced the missing piece.
In an ideal world, this would be a story about humanity and humankind’s wonderful technological advances. But it is also a story about another uniquely human quality:
… even though the original manufacturer was unable to supply the part, it refused to share the relevant 3D file with Fracassi to help him print the valve. It even went so far as to threaten him for patent infringement if he tried to do so on his own. Since lives were at stake, he went ahead anyway, creating the 3D file from scratch… Fracassi doesn’t dare share his 3D file with other hospitals, despite their desperate need for these valves
… the official list price for a single valve is 10,000 euros — about $11,000. This is a perfect example of how granting an intellectual monopoly in the form of a patent allows almost arbitrarily high prices to be charged, and quite legally.
This reminds me so much of E O Wilson’s quote that “the real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.”
This is also a reminder that we’ve yet to find a balance between rewarding deep research and making the fruits of research available widely and affordably.