Donahue smiled.”I take it you have an opinion. We would like to hear it.”
"I believe the so-called doctrine is a nauseating, shameless piece of sales promotion which capitalizes on a ghastly tragedy and is an insult to the children and families who have been victims of Montayne.”
Celia, hot with anger and ready to leap to her feet, felt Quentin's hand on her arm, restraining her. With an effort she stayed seated, her face flushed, seething. 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 made which he paid for dearly-he wasn't either of those things you said: 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! 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 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 volumes followed 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-"I just 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. "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 ultra-cautious, 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.”