Arthur Hailey - Strong Medicine

Only one adverse note obtruded on Winnie's sunny nature: her failure to have a child, which she dearly wanted. She confided to Celia, "Me an' 'Ank keep tryin'. Lordy, how we tryl-some days I'm fair wrung out. But it don't ever click.”

At Celia's urging, Andrew arranged fertility tests for Winme and her husband. The tests proved positive in each case.”Both you and Hank are capable of having children," Andrew explained one evening while he, Winnie and Celia were together in the kitchen.”It's simply a matter of timing, in which your gynecologist will help, and also luck. You'll have to go on trying.”

"We will," Winnie said, then sighed.”But I won't tell 'Ank till termorrer. I need one good night's sleep.”

Celia did make a brief trip for the company to California in September and she was in Sacramento, by chance standing not far from President Ford, when an attempt was made on the President's life. Only the ineptitude of the woman would-be assassin, who did not understand the firearm she was using, prevented another historic tragedy. Celia was shattered by the experience, and equally horrified to learn of a second assassination attempt, in San Francisco, less than three weeks later. Talking about it at home, with the family gathered for Thanksgiving, she declared, "Some days I think we've become a more violent people, not less.”

Then rhetorically: "Where do ideas about assassinations start?" She had not expected an answer, but Bruce supplied one. "Considering the business you're in, Mom, I'm surprised you don't know that historically they started with drugs, which is what the word 'assassin' means. It's from the Arabic hashish, or 'hashish-eater,' and in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries an Islamic sect, the Nizari Ismd'fifts, took hashish when committing acts of religious terrorism.”

Celia said irritably, "If I don't know, it's because hashish isn't a drug that's used pharmaceutically.”

"It was once," Bruce answered calmly.”And not so long ago, either. Psychiatrists used it against amnesia, but it didn't work and they stopped. "I'll be damned!" Andrew said, while Lisa regarded her brother with a mixture of amusement and awe.

The new year of '76 brought a pleasant interlude in February with the marriage of Juliet Hawthorne to Dwight Goodsmith, the young man Andrew and Celia had met and liked at the Hawthornes' dinner party a year earlier. Dwight, newly graduated from Harvard Law School, was about to begin work in New York City where he and Juliet would live. The wedding was a large and plush affair with three hundred and fifty guests, Andrew and Celia among them.”After all," Lilian Hawthorne told Celia, "it's the only wedding at which I'll be a bride's mother-at least, I hope so.”

Earlier, Lilian had confided her concern that Juliet, who was twenty, should be marrying so young and abandoning college after only two years. But on the day of the wedding Sam and Lilian seemed so radiantly happy that such thoughts had clearly been put away-with good reason, Celia thought. Watching Juliet and Dwight, an intelligent and talented, yet modest, unaffected couple, she was impressed with them and had a conviction that theirs was a marriage which would work. In May of that year, something of special interest to Celia was the publication of The Drugging of the Americas. It was a book which attracted wide attention and cataloged the shameful failure of American and other pharmaceutical firms doing business in Latin America to supply warnings about adverse side effects of their prescription drugs-warnings required by law in more sophisticated countries. Described and documented were the practices which Celia, during her years in international sales, had observed personally and had criticized at Felding-Roth. What made the book different from routine, acerbic attacks on the industry was the scholarly thoroughness of its author, Dr. Milton Silverman, a pharmacologist and faculty member of the University of California at San Francisco. Dr. Silverman had also testified a short time earlier before a congressional committee which listened to him with respect. In Celia's view it was one more warning that the pharmaceutical business should accept moral obligations as well as legal ones. She bought a half-dozen copies of the book and sent them to company executives who responded predictably. Typical was Sam Hawthorne who scribbled a memo:

Basically I share Silverman's views and yours. However, if changes are made there will have to be all-around agreement. No one company can afford to put itself at a disadvantage to all other competitors-especially ourselves at the moment be- cause of our delicate financial condition.

To Celia, Sam's seemed a specious argument, though she did not contest it further, knowing she would not win. A considerable surprise was the response of Vincent Lord, who sent a friendly note.

Thanks for the book. I agree there should be changes, but predict OUT masters will kick and scream against them until forced at pistol point to mend their ways. But keep trying. I'll help when I can.

Increasingly of late, the director of research seemed to have mellowed, Celia thought. She remembered sending him, thirteen years before, a copy of The Feminine Mystique which he returned with a curt remark about "rubbish.”

Or was it, she wondered, because Vince Lord had decided she was now high enough in the company to be useful to him as an ally? During April, Lisa telephoned home to report excitedly that she would be heading for California in the fall. She had been accepted at Stanford University. Then, in June, Lisa graduated from Emma Willard in a gracious outdoor ceremony which Andrew, Celia and Bruce attended. Over a family dinner in Albany that night Andrew observed, "Today's a high point, but otherwise I predict, worldwide, a dull year.”

Almost at once he was proved wrong by a daring Israeli airborne commando raid on Entebbe Airport, Uganda, where more than a hundred hostages were held captive, having been seized by Arab terrorists aided by the treacherous Uganda President Idi Amin. As the free world cheered, delighted to share some upbeat, inspirational news for a change, the Israelis freed the hostages and flew them back to safety. The dullness did return, however-as Andrew was quick to point out-when, at the Democratic national convention in New York, an obscure Georgia populist, leaning heavily on being a "bornagain" Southern Baptist, secured the nomination for President. Despite the American public's disenchantment, first with Nixon, now with Ford, it seemed unlikely the newcomer could win. In the Felding-Roth cafeteria Celia heard someone ask, "Is it conceivable that the highest office in this world could be held by someone who calls himself Jimmy. Yet, at the Morristown corporate headquarters there was little time for thoughts of politics. Most attention was focused on the exciting new drug soon to be released-Montayne.

It was almost two years since Celia had expressed to Sam her doubts and unease about Montayne but, at Sam's urging, had agreed to keep an open mind while studying research and testing data. In the meantime there had been voluminous material, most of which Celia read. As she did, her conviction grew that Sam was right: pharmaceutical science had made amazing advances in fifteen years, and pregnant women should not be denied a beneficial drug simply because another drug, long ago, had proven harmful. Equally significant: the testing of Montayne-first in France, subsequently in Denmark, Britain, Spain, Australia, and now in the United States-had clearly been as cautious and complete as human care could make it. Thus, because of authenticated results and her own reading, Celia was not only convinced of the safety of Montayne, but enthusiastic about its usefulness and commercial possibilities. At home, on several occasions, she attempted to share her knowledge with Andrew, seeking to convert him to her changed opinions. But, uncharacteristically, Andrew appeared to have a closed mind. He always managed to turn their conversation to other matters, making it clear that while wishing to avoid an argument, Montayne was a subject ne preferred to hold at arm's length. In the end Celia gave up, in Andrew's presence keeping her enthusiasm to herself. There would be, she knew, many other outlets for it once Felding-Roth's sale’s campaign began in earnest.