Colin Murdoch invented the plastic disposable syringe as a means of preventing the cross-infection which increased after the introduction of antibiotics. Unfortunately, the New Zealand Health Department thought the concept was ‘too futuristic’ and that patients would refuse to be injected with anything contained in plastic. Multinational drug companies adopted them soon after Murdoch’s patents appeared in international gazettes, but he did not have the resources to assert his intellectual property over their design.
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