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STORY SUMMARY: Should medicine developed through privately funded research be auctioned off to the highest bidder or distributed to those most in need? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Amaya has developed a “bug” based on a rare flower that actively finds and repairs damaged cells in the human body. Her friend, and later husband, helps her bring additional funding to the project. The important flower is quite rare and after more than a decade Amaya is unable to replicate the flower’s properties. This puts her husband, and her investors, into a difficult situation of deciding if the neediest should get access to the limited treatments available, or if it should be auctioned off to the super rich. Amaya finally cracks the code and is able to replicate the flower’s properties when she dies in a mysterious lab explosion. Her daughter, Jayde, grows up fighting against selling the limited supply of medicine to the highest bidder. Over time, Jayde grows old and dies. At her funeral the truth is revealed to her husband, the company had her killed in order to perpetuate scarcity and secure increased profits.

DISCUSSION: This is a story we have seen in other variations, but this is the clearest example we have seen of the question, “How do you distribute medicine when resources are scarce?” It would seem obvious you would give them to those most in need. However, those able to pay the most mean more profits, and more resources to develop future treatments. What role, and how much, should the government have? There are no great answers for any of these questions, but they are useful fodder for discussion all the same.

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