Strong Medicine (75 page)

flushed, seething.

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A minority member of the subcommittee, Senator Jaffee, observed mildly,

"But surely, Dr. Stavely, if a company, in effect, admits an error and

promises for the future . - ."

Stavely snapped, "I was asked my opinion and gave it. If a piece of

hocus-pocus like that deceives you, sir, it doesn't me."

Senator Donahue, with a half smile, put his paper down.

After a few more questions, Dr. Stavely was thanked and excused.

The first witness on the following day, it was announced, would be Dr.

Gideon Mace from FDA.

That evening, in her suite at the Madison Hotel, Celia received a telephone

call. The caller was Juliet Goodsmith who announced she was downstairs in

the lobby. Celia invited her to come up, and when Juliet arrived embraced

her affectionately.

Sam's and Lilian's daughter looked older than her twenty-three years, Celia

thought, though that was not surprising. She also appeared to have lost

weight-too much of it, prompting Celia to suggest they have dinner

together, but the offer was declined.

"I only came," Juliet said, "because I'm in Washington, staying with a

friend, and I read about those hearings. They're not being fair to you.

You're the only one in the company who showed any decency about that filthy

drug. All the others were greedy and rotten, and now you're being

punished."

They were seated facing each other, and Celia said gently, "It wasn't, and

isn't, quite like that."

She explained that as the company's senior representative, she was the

immediate target for Senator Donahue and his aides; also that her personal

actions had had no effiect on the marketing of Montayne.

"The point is," Celia said, "Donahue is trying to make FeldingRoth took

like a public enemy."

"Then maybe he's right," Juliet said, "and the company is a public enemy."

"No, I won't have that!" Celia said emphatically, "The company made a bad

mistake over Montayne, but has done enormous good in the past and will do

the same again." Even now she was thinking, with excited optimism, about

Peptide 7 and Hexin W.

"Also," Celia went on, "whatever mistake your father madewhich he paid for

dearly-he wasn't either of those things you said:

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,rotten' or 'greedy.' He was a good man who did what he saw as right at

the time."

"How can I believe that?" Juliet retorted. "He gave me those pills

without telling me they weren't approved."

"Try to forgive your father," she urged. "If you don't, now that he's

dead, you'll achieve nothing and it will be harder on you." As Juliet

shook her head, Celia added, "I hope you will, in time."

She knew better than to inquire about Juliet's son, now almost two years

old and in an institution for the helpless and incurable, where he would

spend the remainder of his life. Instead, she asked, "How is Dwight?"

"We're getting a divorce."

"Oh, no!" The shock and concern were genuine. Celia remembered her

conviction, at Juliet's and Dwight's wedding, that theirs would be a

strong marriage which would last.

"Everything was great until our baby was a few months old." Juliet's

voice held the flatness of defeat. "Then, when we found out how he was,

and why, nothing seemed to work anymore. Dwight was bitter at my father,

even more than me. He wanted to sue Felding-Roth and Daddy personally,

savaging them in court, handling the case himself. I could never have

agreed to that."

"No," Celia said. "It would have torn everyone apart."

"After that we tried to put things together for a while." Juliet said

sadly, "It didn't work. We weren't the same two people anymore. That's

when we decided on divorce."

There seemed little to say, but Celia thought, How much sadness and

tragedy, beyond the obvious, Montayne had wrought!

13

Of all the witnesses to appear before the Senate Subcommittee on

Ethical Merchandising during its investigation of Montayne, Dr. Gideon

Mace suffered the hardest time.

At one dramatic point during the cross-examination of Mace,

Senator Donahue pointed an accusing finger and thundered in a

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voice matching Jehovah's, "You were the one who, representing government and

all the safeguards government has set, unleashed this scourge upon American

womanhood and helpless unborn children. Therefore do not expect to leave

this place unscathed, uncensured, or unburdened of a guilty conscience which

should stay with you through all your days."

What Mace had done a few minutes earlier, astounding all who heard, was

admit that prior to recommending FDA approval of Montayne, he had had

serious doubts about the drug, based on the earliest Australian

report--doubts which never left him.

Urbach, conducting the cross-examination, had almost shouted, "Then why did

you approve it?"

To which Mace answered, emotionally but lamely, "I . . . I just don't

know."

The answer-the worst he could have given-produced from spectators in the

hearing room an audible shock wave of disbelief and horror, and Donahue's

tirade a moment later.

Until that point, Mace had appeared-while plainly nervous-to be in control

and able to account for his actions as the FDA reviewer who had overseen

the Montayne new drug application. He had begun with a short statement of

his own, describing the enormous amount of data submitted-125,000 pages in

307 volumesfollowed by details of his various queries of that data, which

resulted in delay. These queries, he stated, were eventually resolved to

his satisfaction. He did not refer to the report from Australia; that only

came out later, in response to questions.

It was during questioning, when the Australian matter was reached, that

Mace became emotionally disturbed, then seemed suddenly to go to pieces.

The awful admission-"Ijust don't know" -had followed.

Despite an awareness of Mace's weak position, Celia felt some sympathy for

him, believing the load of blame on Mace was disproportionate. Later she

spoke of it to Childers Quentin.

6611's at times like this," the lawyer commented, "that the British system

of drug approvals is shown as clearly superior to ours."

When Celia asked why, Quentin explained.

"In Britain a Committee on the Safety of Medicines advises the Minister of

Health, and it's the minister who grants a new drug license. Civil servants

are among those counseling the minister, Of course, but the minister has

responsibility, so if anything goes wrong he, and he alone, must face

Parliament and take the blame.

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"A minister in the British government would not do anything as cowardly

as we let happen here--allow a civil servant like Mace to carry the can

and go to Capitol Hill, accepting blame. If we had the same strong moral

system, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare would be up

there, facing Donahue. But where is the Secretary now? Probably skulking

in his office or conveniently out of town."

There was another weakness in the United States system, Quentin believed.

"One effect of what you see happening is that FDA's people become

ultracautious, not wanting to be dragged before a congressional committee

and maybe crucified. So instead of approving drugs which ought to be

available, they sit on them and wait, sometimes far too long. Obviously

some caution-a lot of cautionabout new drugs is needed, but too much can

be bad, delaying progress in medicine, depriving doctors, hospitals and

patients of cures and other aid they ought to have."

When Mace's ordeal was finally over and a recess ordered, Celia was

relieved. At the same time, because of her earlier sympathy, she got up

and walked across to him.

"Dr. Mace, I'm Celia Jordan of Felding-Roth. I just wanted to say . . ."

She stopped, confounded and dismayed. At the mention of Felding-Roth,

Mace's features contorted into a look of blazing, savage hatred such as

she had never seen before. Now, eyes glaring, teeth clenched, he hissed,

"Stay away from me! Do you hear! Don't ever, ever, come near me again!"

Before Celia could collect her thoughts and answer, Mace turned his back

and walked away.

Quentin, close behind, asked curiously, "What was all that about?"

Shaken, she answered, "I don't know. It happened when I used the company

name. He seemed to go berserk."

"So?" The lawyer shrugged. "Dr. Mace doesn't like the manufacturer of

Montayne. It's understandable."

"No. It's something more than that. I'm sure."

"I wouldn't worry about it."

Yet that expression of hatred stayed with Celia, troubling and puzzling

her, for the remainder of the day.

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Vincent Lord had stayed on in Washington for an extra day and Celia had a

showdown with him about his testimony the previous afternoon. It took place

in her hotel suite where she accused him bluntly of lying, and asked,

"Why?"

To her surprise, the research director did not dispute the accusation and

said contritely, "Yes, you're right. I'm sorry. I was nervous."

:'You didn't appear to be nervous."

'It doesn't have to show. All those questions were getting to me. I

wondered what that guy, Urbach, knew."

"What could he know?"

Lord hesitated, groping for an answer. "Nothing more than we all do, I

guess. Anyway, I figured that how I answered was the quickest way to end

the questions and get out."

Celia was unconvinced. "Why should you, more than anyone else, have to get

out quickly? Okay, what's happening is unpleasant for everyone, including

me, and we all have consciences to answer. But nothing illegal was ever

done about Montayne." She stopped, a sudden thought striking her. "Or was

it?"

"No! Of course not." But the response was a second late and a shade too

strong.

Some words of Sam's, as they had once before, came back to Celia: "There's

. . . something you don't know. "

She regarded Lord quizzically. "Vince, is there anything, anything at all,

about Montayne and Felding-Roth that I've not been told?"

"I swear to you-nothing. What could there be?"

He was lying again. She knew it. She also knew that Sam's secret, whatever

it might be, had not died with him-that Lord had shared it.

But at the moment, she could go no further.

The subcommittee hearings lasted four days. There were other witnesses,

among them two doctors-neurologists who had examined babies damaged by

Montayne. One of the doctors had been to Europe to study cases there and

showed slides of children he had seen.

Outwardly, there was nothing to suggest that the photographed children were

other than normal. But most were lying down and, as the specialist

explained, "Any but the smallest movement will al-

387

ways have to be made for them. Additionally, all these infants suffered

serious brain damage during their embryonic stage."

Some of the children's faces were beautiful. One-older than the