"And you, Snow? What will you be doing while I'm being competent and resourceful?" He chided her gently, "The president does not have to account to the executive vice president, Celia. It is the other way around. However, so there is no misunderstanding between us, let me concede that my knowledge of the pharmaceutical business is in no way comparable with yours, in fact far less. What I do know a great deal about-almost certainly more than you-is company finance. It is an area needing special attention at this time. Therefore reviewing money matters is how I shall spend most of the six months, or less, I will be occupying this chair.”
Celia admitted to herself that she had been dealt with courteously and with patience. She said, more pleasantly than earlier, "Thank you, Snow, I'll do my best to keep up my end of that arrangement.”
"I'm sure you will.”
The new president did not come into the office every day, but when he did he developed a financial master plan for Felding-Roth, covering the next five years, which Seth Feingold described to Celia as "a gem, a real contribution.”
The comptroller added, "The old codger may need a cane to walk, but not for his mind, which is still sharp as a razor blade.”
At the same time, Celia came to appreciate O'Halloran herself his support of everything she did, and his unfailing courtesy. He was truly, in an outmoded description she remembered, "a gentleman of the old school.”
Consequently she was sorry, in the last week of January, 1978, to learn of his confinement to bed with influenza, and genuinely sad a week later when Snow O'Halloran died of a massive coronary occlusion.
This time there was no two-week delay in appointing a successor. The matter was settled the day after O'Halloran's funeral. No viable outside candidate had appeared, even though the president pro tempore had served more than four of his agreed six months. There was only one possible choice and the board of directors made it, taking less than fifteen minutes to decide what should have been decided the previous September: Celia Jordan would become president and chief executive officer of Felding-Roth.
The raw idea had come to her on the flight back from Hawaii last August. A remark of Andrew's had triggered it. He had said to Celia, Lisa and Bruce: "I don't believe a drug should be taken for anything that is just uncomfortable or self-limiting.” The subject was pregnancy. The Montayne disaster, fresh in all their minds, had prompted the remark. Andrew had added, advising his own daughter, "When your time comes, don't you take anything... And if you want a sound, healthy baby-no liquor, wine, or smoking either.” Those words were the foundation of what Celia was now ready to propose as a fixed company policy. She had a name for what she planned: the Felding-Roth Doctrine. She had considered bringing the idea forward sooner, during her time as executive vice president, but decided against it for fear of being overruled. Even after her appointment as president she waited, biding her time, knowing that what she intended would require approval of the board of directors. Now, seven months later, in September, she was prepared to move. Bill Ingram, recently promoted to vice president of sales and marketing, had helped with the wording of the Felding-Roth Doctrine, of which the draft introduction read:
FELDING-ROTH PHARMACEUTICALS INCORPORATED solemnly pledges:
Article 1: This company will never research, manufacture, distribute, or market directly or indirectly, any pharmaceutical product intended for use by women during pregnancy and aimed at treating any natural, self-limiting condition, such as nausea and sickness, relating to a normal pregnancy.
Article 2: Felding-Roth will actively advocate, in all ways open to it, that no pregnant woman shall have prescribed for her, or shall obtain and use directly, during a normal pregnancy, any such product as described in Article 1 and originating elsewhere.
Article 3: Felding-Roth will advise pregnant women to avoid the use of all prescription and non-prescription drugs its owns and those of other companies-throughout their pregnancies, except those drugs prescribed by a physician for exceptional medical needs.
Article 4: Felding-Roth will further actively advocate that pregnant women abstain, throughout their pregnancies, from the use of alcoholic beverages, including wine, and from cigarette and other smoking, including the inhalation of smoke from other persons...
There was more. Another reference to physicians was included in part to uphold the advisory-trust relationship between doctor and patient; also as a sop to doctors who, as prescribers, were Felding-Roth's best customers. There were references to special conditions, such as medical emergencies, where the use of drugs might be essential or overriding. As Bill Ingram put it, "The whole thing makes more sense, Celia, than anything I've read in a long time. Someone in this business should have done it years ago.”
Ingram, who had voted against Celia and for Montayne at the critical meeting prior to her resignation, had been penitent and uneasy at the time of her return to Felding-Roth. Several weeks later he had admitted, "I've been wondering if, after all that happened, you want me working here at all.”
"The answer is yes," Celia told him.”I know how you work, also that I can trust and rely on you. As to what's past, you made a mistake in judgment, which all of us do at times. It was bad luck that it turned out to be a mistake with awful consequences, but you weren't alone, and I imagine you've learned from the experience.”
"Oh, have I learned! And suffered, too, wishing I'd had the intelligence and guts to stick with you.”
"Don't necessarily stick with me," she advised.”Not even now. There'll be times when I'll be wrong, and if you think I am, I want to hear about it.”
After Celia's elevation to the presidency, there was a restructuring of duties, along with several promotions. Bill Ingram's was among them. He was already doing well in his new senior post.
Celia, now a full-fledged member of the board of directors, prepared carefully for the meeting which would consider her proposed Felding-Roth Doctrine. Bearing in mind what Sam once told her about his problems with the board, and remembering the resistance there had been, years before, to Sam's controversial plan for a British research institute, Celia expected opposition. To her surprise, there was little, almost none. One member of the board-Adrian Caston, who was chairman of a financial trust group and a cautious thinker--did ask, "Is it wise or necessary to block ourselves off permanently from a field of medicine which, at some future time, might see new and safer developments of a highly profitable nature?" They were meeting in the boardroom at company headquarters, and Celia answered, looking down the long walnut table, "Mr. Caston, I believe that is exactly what we should do. We should do it because we will also be blocking ourselves, and others who succeed us here, from the temptation, the chance, and the risk of involving this company with another Montayne.”
There was an attentive silence as she continued.”Memories fade quickly. Many young women now at the age of motherhood do not remember Thalidomide, indeed have never heard of it. In a few more years, that will be equally true of Montayne, at which point pregnant women will again take anything their doctors prescribe. But if it happens, let us have no part of it, remembering that the entire history of influencing, by drugs, the normal course of pregnancy has been burdened with disaster. "Time and experience have demonstrated pregnancy as the single health condition which is best left to nature alone. At Felding-Roth we are living with a pregnancy-drug disaster, paying dearly for it now. For the future we will do better-morally and financially-to seek our profits elsewhere and urge others to do likewise.”
Clinton Etheridge, a veteran director and lawyer, from whom Celia had expected antagonism, then spoke in her support. “Speaking of profits, I like Mrs. Jordan's idea of turning our Montayne debacle into a commercial advantage. In case the rest of you haven't noticed, this so-called doctrine"-the director held it up-"is damned clever. It's a smart piece of merchandising promotion for the other drugs we sell. It will have a strong dollar value, as I think we'll find in time.”