Strong Medicine (48 page)

well-balanced children.

An important part of it, of course, was that Winnie and Hank March had

run the family house, as they continued to do, with cheerful efficiency.

During a celebration of Winnie's fifteenth year of employment, which

coincided with her thirty-fourth birthday, it was Andrew who remembered

Winnie's long-abandoned plan to move on to Australia. He remarked, "What

the Aussies lost, the Jordans gained."

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

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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 hashfshT, 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 darrined!" 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

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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 meuio:

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

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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.

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He always managed to turn their conversation to other matters, makin.-

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

Feld in g-Roth's sah~s campaign be.-an in earnest.

8

"Thc impxviat thing afl of us in sales must remember and empha

size about M,,,)ntayne," Celia said into the podium microphone, "is

that it is a c~ripletely safe drug for pregnant women. More than

that- it is a joyous drug! Montayne is something which women

plagued by nausca and sickncss during pregnancies--have ne(-ded,

lorgtd for, aiid deserved for centuries. Now, at last, we of Felding

Roth, have become emancipators, freeing American women from

their ancient yoke, makin.- each day of prttgnancy better, brighter,

happier! The drug to end ',wrning sickness'forever is here! We have

it! "

There was a spirited '~-)urst of handclapping from the audience.

It was Oct3ber 1976. Celia was in San Francisco at a Ft~ldingRoth

regional sales -meeting, attended by the company's detail men and women,

sales supcr-isors and regional managers from nine western stat(~s,

inchiding Alaska and Hawaii. The three-day session was at the i-airmont

Hotel on Nob Hill, Celia and several other senior officei -,, of the

coinpany w~re staying at the elegant Stanford Court across the street.

Among them was Bill Ingram, once Celia's junior at O-T-C and now, as

deputy director of pharmaceutical sales, her principal assistant.

Marketing plans for Montayne were in high gear, and FeldingRoth hoped to

have the product on the market by February, now only four months away.

Meanwhile it was necessary that those who wov.ld be selling Montayne know

as much about the drug as possibie.

Among the sales force, enthusiasm about the prospects for

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Montayne was running high, and someone at head office had composed a song

to be sung to the tune of "America the Beautiful."

0 beautiful for carefree days,

For dreams of motherhood,

For now in safe and simple ways,

All mornings can be good! Montayne, Montayne! Montayne, Montayne!