Inwardly Celia winced, then reminded herself that support was worth having, even if for wrong reasons. She also wondered about Etheridge, whom she knew to be a friend and ally of Vincent Lord's, and who sometimes brought the research director's viewpoints to board meetings, as Sam had discovered long ago. Lord knew about the Felding-Roth Doctrine, was aware it would be considered today, and he and Etheridge would almost certainly have discussed it. So... was the support she was now receiving a remote way of Lord's acknowledging to Celia his regrets about Montayne? She supposed she would never know. There was more discussion by the board members, mostly questions about how the doctrine would be put into effect. But it was the TV-radio network czar Owen Norton who had the final word. Looking at Celia from the opposite end of the boardroom table, Norton, who a few days earlier had celebrated his eighty-second birthday, observed dryly, "You may have noticed, Mrs. Jordan, that we are finally getting around to respecting your womanly judgment. I can only say, for myself and others like me, I am sorry we took so long.”
"Sir," Celia said, and meant it, "you have just made my day.”
The vote that followed, establishing the doctrine as official company policy, was unanimous.
The impact of the Felding-Roth Doctrine was substantial, though, with the general public, not as great as Celia had hoped. Doctors, with a few exceptions, liked it. One obstetrician wrote:
Kindly send me some extra copies, one of which I shall have framed to hang on my office wall. I intend to point to it when pregnant patients suggest I am serving them less than adequately if I decline to write a prescription for some palliative which, in my opinion, they would be better off without. You have, by your highly ethical stand, strengthened the hands of some of us who do not believe there is a drug for every occasion. More power to you!
The extra copies were sent-to that doctor and many others who requested them. Physicians who objected did so on the grounds that they, and not a pharmaceutical company, should advise patients about which drugs to take, or not, and when. But judging by the volume of mail, they were a small minority. The Felding-Roth Doctrine was featured widely in the company's advertising, though this was confined to medical and scientific magazines. Celia at first favored advertising in newspapers and general publications, but was persuaded this would create antagonism from organized medicine which, along with FDA, frowned on direct approaches to consumers about prescription drugs. Perhaps because of this absence, newspapers gave only minor attention to the Felding-Roth Doctrine. The New York Times ran a short two-paragraph story amid its financial news, the Washington Post buried a similar report in a rear section of the paper. Elsewhere, in other newspapers, brief items appeared if there happened to be room. Television, despite public relations attempts to persuade producers otherwise, paid no attention at all. "If we market a drug that turns out to have harmful side effects we didn't expect," Bill Ingram complained to Celia, "those TV news types take our skins off. But when we do something positive like this, all we get is yawns.”
"That's because TV journalism is simplistic," she responded.”Its people are trained to look for strong, quick impact, so they avoid the thoughtful, the cerebral, which take too much air time. Don't worry, though. At times that policy can help us.”
Ingram said doubtfully, "Be sure to tell me when it does.”
Reaction to the Felding-Roth Doctrine from other drug firms was mixed. Those who marketed products for use by women during pregnancy were openly hostile.”A cheap shot, shoddy publicity, nothing more," was how a spokesman for one such company described the doctrine publicly. From others came suggestions that Felding-Roth had attempted to be "holier than thou," and might have harmed the industry, though in what way was not made clear. However, one or two competitors were openly admiring. "Frankly," Celia was told by a respected industry leader, "I wish we'd thought of it first.”
"None of which proves anything," she confided to Andrew, "except you can't please everyone.”
"Be patient," he urged.”You've done something good, and you've started ripples which are spreading. In time, you'll be surprised how far they go.” Other rings of ripples were resulting from Montayne. One had its origin on Washington's Capitol Hill. Aides to a congressional veteran, Senator Dennis Donahue, had spent a year, on and off, reviewing the Montayne matter and now declared it an ideal subject for their leader to focus on at a Senate investigative hearing. "Ideal," in this case, meant with wide public interest, generous exposure and, almost certainly, television coverage. As the senator was apt to remind those closest to him politically, "Let's never forget TV is where the masses and the votes are.”
Accordingly, it was announced that the Senate Subcommittee on Ethical Merchandising, of which Donahue was chairman, would begin hearings in Washington, D.C., early in December. Witnesses, the senator stated during an October news conference, were already being subpoenaed. Others with firsthand knowledge of the subject were invited to communicate with the committee's staff. When Celia heard the initial report, she telephoned Childers Quentin, the Washington lawyer. "That really is bad news," he affirmed.”I'm afraid that your company, and probably you as its chief spokesman, Mrs. Jordan, are in for a rough time. If you'll consider some advice, I urge you to begin preparing for the hearings now, with help from legal counsel. I know how these things work, and I assure you the senator's staff will dig up and place on view every unsavory fact and rumor they can find.”
If the word demagogue, or demagogues, had not been coined by the Ancient Greeks around the time of Cleon, it would have been invented, out of necessity, to define United States Senator Dennis Donahue. No more striking example of the breed existed. He was born to wealth and privilege but posed, and regularly described himself, as "a son of the common people, truly one of them, and 'of the earth, earthy.' " No description could have been more inaccurate but, like anything repeated often enough, it became accepted and believed by many. Another way the senator liked to be portrayed was as "a spokesman for the poor and suffering; a foe of their oppressors.”
Whether, inside his soul, he really cared about the poor and suffering, only Donahue himself knew. Either way, he made good use of them. I Anywhere in the nation, where there happened to be a newsworthy David vs. Goliath struggle, Donahue hastened to the scene, stridently siding with the Davids, even on occasions when-to thoughtful people-Goliath was clearly in the right.”There are always more Davids, and they're useful at election time," an aide once explained in a moment of unguarded frankness. Perhaps for the same reason, in any labor dispute Donahue unfailingly supported organized labor, never favoring business even if labor excesses were involved. The labor and unemployment scenes were fertile fields for an ambitious politician, he had discovered early. Which was why, at times of higher than normal unemployment, the senator sometimes joined lines of job-seekers outside employment offices, talking with them. Ostensibly this was to "see for himself, and find out how the unemployed felt"-an admirable aim to which no reasonable person could object. Interestingly, though, the media always learned of the senator's intentions, so that TV crews and press photographers awaited him. Thus his familiar face, wearing its most soulful expression as he discoursed with the unemployed, was on network news that night and in next day's newspapers. As to other "common man" matters, the senator had discovered a recent, fruitful one in his objections to first-class, tax-deductible air travel by businessmen. If people wanted that kind of special privilege, he argued, they should pay for it themselves, and not be subsidized by other taxpayers. He introduced a Senate bill to make first-class air travel non-deductible for tax purposes, though knowing full well the bill would die somewhere in the legislative process. Meanwhile, the amount of news coverage was remarkable. Keeping the idea afloat, Senator Donahue made a point of traveling tourist class himself, by air, informing the press before each journey. However, no first-class passenger ever had as much- attention lavished on him as Donahue, back in his tourist seat. One thing he failed to mention publicly was that the bulk of his air travel was in the luxury of private aircraft--either chartered through a family trust fund or made available by friends. In appearance, Donahue was stocky, and had a cherubic face which made him look younger than the forty-nine he was. He was overweight without being fat, and referred to himself as "comfortably upholstered.”