Another example involves the use of penicillin for killing bacteria in humans. In 1935, infectious diseases such as pneumonia and tuberculosis killed almost 234,000 Americans. Thirty years later, with widespread use of penicillin based antibiotics and a considerably larger population, the death toll dropped to no more than 78,000.

Clearly, the discovery of penicillin was a major triumph for drug science and humanity. But why did the discovery and development of penicillin take so long? Alexander Fleming's discovery in 1928 was not met by enthusiasm from the scientific community because his work with anti-bacterial substances and molds had not yielded past results. He was unable to effectively communicate the importance of this new discovery to his fellow scientists.

Many people also did not believe in the use of chemical substances to treat infection, including Fleming's own boss. In addition, once the effectiveness of penicillin was proven, people did not know how to produce the drug in mass quantities and at an affordable price. Penicillin had existed for many thousands of years, and there is no reason why they couldn't have been used by western medicine much earlier to treat infection had the focus simply begun sooner.

There are other "stalls" throughout history that have had similar effects. There are things today which are taking too long to become implemented in certain parts of the world.

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