FLASHBACK by Gary Braver Page B

Officier Menard’s question: Was she on any antipsychotic medication or other stuff that might have caused her violence? “So, what do we tell the police?”
    “That there was a security breach and that it won’t happen again because new safeguards are in place.”
    “I mean the murder.” He kept avoiding that fact.
    “Simply that she was a woman suffering from dementia, that she just went berserk. And that’s not so far-fetched. These are crazy people, after all.”
    René could hear her father’s voice. “Honey, I can feel it. I can feel the holes.”
    The chilly touch of his words bothered her. “So you’re saying that Memoring—”
    “Memorine,” he said, pronouncing it like a talisman. “ Memorine —and file that away because it’s going to rock the world.”
    “So you’re saying that Memorine did not cause her to attack the man.”
    “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
    “But how do you know that if the drug’s been in its final phase of study for only six months?”
    A smile spread across his face like a rainbow. “René, we’ve been running trials at Broadview and testing efficacy and safety for months, and there’ve been no adverse reactions whatsoever. The Clara Devine incident is an unrelated anomaly. Period.”
    “She was sexually abused as a child.”
    “Beg pardon?”
    René did not want to violate the woman’s privacy, nor did she want to betray Cassandra Gould, but this was vital information. “A neighbor next door did things to her.” And she explained what she knew.
    “How unfortunate, but what does that have to do with anything?”
    She wasn’t sure if he was playing coy again or drawing her out. “Doctor, I’m saying that Clara Devine attacked the man because in her mind she was seeing her abuser. I’m just wondering if it had anything to do with this Memorine.”
    Carr laid down his fork with a definitive snap. “Well, it didn’t.”
    “But how can one be certain if the stuff’s improving memory?”
    “Because half the people in your nursing homes are seeing dead people all the time. Their husbands are their baby brothers, their sisters are their
kindergarten teachers. You spend your days on these wards, you should know that. Clara Devine was no different, except she’s had some kind of post-traumatic stress experience—which happens to people all the time. VA hospitals are full of them.”
    “There’s also the matter of informed consent. Her sister had passed on power of attorney, which meant that Clara was a ward of the state. Essentially, nobody was watching out for her.”
    Carr made another audible sigh. “And I suppose you’re going to quote the Nuremberg Code on the principles governing ethical experimentation on humans.”
    “Actually, I was thinking of the Declaration of Helsinki.”
    “Look, this is not some hideous conspiracy. We’re not conducting Josef Mengele experiments on the elderly, shooting them up with voodoo compounds. We’re bringing them back from a killer fog. You saw Clara Devine, and you’re going to see others in the next year. So, think of this as our apology for keeping you in the dark, as you said.”
    She nodded, feeling as if she were being bought. “I’d like to know what other patients of mine are in these trials.”
    “Of course, but you’ve got hundreds of patients, and I don’t know the overlap.”
    “Dr. Carr, every clinical trial is bound by very detailed, very stringent protocols established well in advance. Were I to approach the Institutional Review Board and raise the question about their approval in advance of GEM Tech clinicians sequestering documentation of trial patients from the consulting pharmacist, what might be their reaction?”
    For the first time that evening Jordan Carr’s face froze, his cheeks mottled with red as if he had been hit with a flash case of the hives. “Ms. Ballard, you’re very sharp and very responsible. I’ll make certain that you will have total access to all your