Strong Medicine by Arthur Hailey

step
    in and tell us what to do."
    "You've said that before," Upshaw acknowledged, "and maybe you're right.
    Also, maybe it's the only way."
    They had left it there.
    73
     

The subject of drugs and the pharmaceutical industry was on other minds
    elsewhere.
    Through much of 1960 the drug business was in the news almost daily-mostly
    unfavorably. The continuing U.S. Senate hearings, chaired by Senator
    Kefauver, were proving a gold mine for reporters and unexpected agony for
    companies like Felding-Roth. Both outcomes were due, in part, to skillful
    staging by the senator and his staff.
    Like all such congressional hearings, much of the emphasis was on politics,
    with a bias decided in advance. As a Washington reporter, Douglass Cater,
    wrote, "They . . . move from a preconceived idea to a predetermined
    conclusion." There was also, on the part of Estes Ktfauver and his aides,
    a constant quest for headlines; thus their presentations were one-sided.
    The senator proved a maestro at disclosing sensational charges just before
    reporters had to leave the hearing room to file their stories-11:30 A.M.
    for afternoon papers, 4:30 P.m. for morning editions. As a result,
    rebuttals occurred with reporters absent.
    Despite the unfairness, certain ugly truths emerged. They revealed
    excessive pricing of drugs; unlawful collusive price-fixing; illegally
    rigged bids for government contracts for supplying drugs; misleading
    advertising to physicians, including minimizing or even ignoring dangerous
    side effects; infiltration of the Food and Drug Administration by
    pharmaceutical companies and acceptance by one high-ranking FDA official of
    "honorariums" totaling $287,000 from a drug firm source.
    Newspaper headlines, though sometimes one-sided, zeroed in on some abuses.
    SENATORS FIND 1,118% DRUG MARKUP
    -Washington Evening Star
    SENATE PANEL CITES MARKUP ON DRUGS
    Ranging to 7,079%
    -New York Times
    DRUG PERIL CLAIMED
    -Miarni Herald
    BIG PROFIT FOUND IN TRANQUILIZERS
    Chlorpromazine 6 Times Costlier in U.S. than in Paris
    -New York Times
    74
     

Testimony revealed that drugs which had been discovered and developed in
    foreign countries were far cheaper in those countries than in the United
    States. This was absurd, it was pointed out, since the American companies
    marketing the drugs had incurred no development costs.
    In French drugstores, for example, fifty tablets of chlorpromazine cost
    fifty-one cents compared with three dollars and three cents in the United
    States. Similarly, the U.S. price of reserpine was three times greater
    than in Europe where the drug was developed.
    Another strange contrast was that American-made penicillin was selling
    in Mexico for two thirds of its retail price at home. These and other
    American prices, it was suggested, were high because of unlawful
    collusion between manufacturers.
    PET FOOD SAID BETTER INSPECTED THAN DRUGS
    -Los Angeles Times
    FDA AIDE'S TALK EDITED BY AD MAN
    Drag Firm Slogan Written Into Speech
    -New York Times
    Testimony disclosed that a speech delivered by an FDA division head at
    an International Antibiotics Symposium had been sent to a drug company,
    Pfizer, for prior approval. An advertising copywriter changed the text
    to include, by inference, a plug for a Pfizer product, Sigmamycin. Later
    the drug company bought 260,000 reprints of the speech, treating it as
    an FDA endorsement.
    The disagreeable newspaper headlines continued, sometimes on successive
    days, in big and small cities coast to coast, with TV and radio adding
    their reports.
    All in all, as Celia expressed it to Andrew in December, "It hasn't been
    a year for boasting about where I work."
    At the time, Celia was on leave of absence because their second child had
    been born in late October, again in accord with Celia's schedule. As
    Andrew had been confident, it was a boy. They named him Bruce.
    Both their li~es had been made easier several months before by the advent
    of a young Englishwoman, Winnie August,