BLIND TRIAL by Brian Deer (good books to read for adults .txt) 📕

“Look, with what we now know, if we factor in Helen Glinski, we still get the sixty percent efficacy. Yes? WernerVac still cuts the infection rate by nearly two-thirds. And then we have a sixty-five to eighty percent reduced viral load in the breakthroughs. That’s not failure. That’s success.”

Marcia rubbed her feet with more energy. “So, what are you telling us? You’re telling us these figures would be a basis for licensure, even with the adverse events?”

“Government’s as keen for this as anybody.”

Mr. Louviere spoke next. “There’s one thing, ma’am. Like, isn’t there the issue how only 156 seroconverted on the vaccine arm of the study, so it’s one enhanced progression in 156 infected with the virus after the shots?”

Mr. Hoffman slapped an arm of the couch. “Do you have any qualifications in math, or statistics?”

“No, sir.”

“Biomedical science?”

“No.”

“Then shut the fuck up.”

Marcia rose and switched on the lights: two ranks of recessed spots and a table lamp. “So, what are you telling us, Trudy? I understand your reticence, but we’re all looking to you for guidance here. You really believe your vaccine could have succeeded with FDA and all the expert groups who would look at the data, in spite of this awful syndrome?”

Trudy looked up. “May I smoke?”

Marcia flapped a handful of pink fingernails. “Ben, matches.”

Trudy sucked on a flame, then exhaled a fog. “As we stand, right now, I can only give the facts we got. I’ve got no yesses and nos. Vaccine’s a long way from perfect, like any first product in a novel therapeutic group. But we know from BerneB, InderoMab, everything, the real test of a product’s not a clinical trial, but what happens out there in the real world.”

AT NINE twenty-five, Marcia called Domino’s and, when security called up to announce the delivery, lifted a bottle of Beaujolais from a closet. Ben and Mr. Hoffman ordered Mighty Meatys with extra mushrooms, while the women went with buffalo wings. She swiveled behind the desk, alternating bites and sips. This meeting was going better than she expected.

“Now understand this, all of you. I’m absolutely adamant that the full, sanitized picture must come out. BerneWerner Biomed must maintain its reputation for scrupulous ethics and the highest corporate integrity.”

Mr. Hoffman and Trudy both nodded.

“Mr. Louviere, Ben. How do you see this? As the most recent member to join our family, you might perhaps be the most detached, and have the clearest eye for the public interest.”

He raised both hands and scratched behind his ears. “Well ma’am, only thing I know’s a session in DC where that Dr. Honda was talking. She got these overheads and was saying like a partially effective vaccine soon was better than a perfect one later. For arresting the pandemic and everything.”

Trudy nodded. “Quite right. Absolutely correct. Better imperfection now than perfection delayed.”

“But then there’s the legal position. At Loyola…”

Mr. Hoffman cut him off. “Forget Loyola. Lawsuits we can handle. Got more lawsuits than Manhattan’s got lounge suits.”

“You can say that again.” Marcia laughed. “But we still have our executive vice president.”

Her general counsel nodded. “Yes, we do. And we can get to that. But it seems to me, in the light of Trudy’s guidance here, there’s two plain questions we gotta ask ourselves first. (a) How bad’s the world need our vaccine? And (b) How we keep from starting up some crazy-assed scare?”

“Go on.”

“I mean, we can’t have the education campaign and the volunteer counseling Trudy’s been talking about between now and Monday afternoon.”

“Monday afternoon? I don’t follow you.”

“The license.”

“What are you saying? You’re saying what? Go ahead?” Marcia waved a buffalo wing. “Aren’t you forgetting something? The police, for example. If we went ahead Monday, willy-nilly, then we’d get a (c). What about a volunteer being murdered?”

“One thing’s for sure, we can’t have a manhunt for America’s most motherfuckin’ when we’re looking to FDA for a license.”

“We’ll have to find him, and turn him in.”

Mr. Hoffman raised his palms toward the ceiling. “Maybe yes, maybe no. We need to think about that. Different issue.”

“Look, you couldn’t perhaps speak with friends of ours at Silver Spring, confidentially, and explain the situation? You couldn’t see how it would play at FDA if we simply made a clean breast of it? Right now. Tell the authorities everything we know.”

“I don’t think so, Marcia.”

“So… then…” She drained her glass. “Are you seriously implying… What? That we ought to really just go ahead with it on Monday? As if nothing’s happened?”

“Not as if nothing’s happened. We’re not that crazy.”

“What then?”

“Hope for better things. Be nice if it was all neat and tidy. Be nice if Doctorjee wasn’t our EVP. But after what Trudy’s said, from a scientific point of view, I’m getting to think we got no choice.”

“Then you are saying go ahead regardless.”

“Not regardless. Course not. But it seems to me we got the Battle of El Alamein here in World War II. Not the end of the war, but the beginning of the end. Keep hope alive. Shitcan for us is a shitcan for the whole biotech and pharma sectors. Market failure. Undermine investment. More regulation. Everything.”

Marcia leaped up, walked to the outer office, hunted for another bottle, but couldn’t find one. Then she returned to the desk and spun in the chair. “I must say, if we did make progress, there could be some handy resource benefits for the Third World. Money saved from HIV treatment would mean more for coronavirus, malaria, diarrhea, more for everything. More could even be targeted to the Glinskis of this world. A win–win situation.”

“Exactly so.”

“And here’s an idea.” She felt lightheaded. “What if we gave a percentage of our profits to drugs for Africa? That would be a tremendous boost to our profile.”

“Through the BerneWerner Foundation.”

“Excellent idea.” She turned to Trudy. “So, what’s your position on Mr. Hoffman’s suggestion? I know this isn’t easy. What’s your guidance?”

Trudy sucked on the Doral. “One thing we can predict is studying the downside could stimulate some mighty big jumps in