Yuri Maltsev on Stalin's infatuation with penicillin

The country is flooded with penicillin, however.  In 1946, Stalin was impressed with how effective it was at fighting disease and ordered that the Soviet Union have the same amount the West does.  The "plan" has never been altered, but 89% of citizens have built-up a resistance to penicillin's effects.  But it is still prescribed because there is nothing else.

~ Yuri N. Maltsev, "The Soviet Medical Nightmare," The Free Market, August 1990