Back in the late 1980s, the 'hygiene hypothesis' was put forward to explain the epidemic of allergies that were affecting children. The idea was that the lack of childhood infections (caused by too much vaccination and too many antibiotics) was damaging children's well-being.

Trends like open source innovation and customer co-creation are all the rage in some new product development circles, but surely patients can't invent their own drugs? Wrong. Patient-facilitated drug discovery isn't new either.