Whiplash Read Free Page A

Pharmaceutical, located right down the road in Stone Bridge. He agreed to see me because he fancied I was some sort of big-wig professor from Yale."
    "You are."
    He tried to laugh, but only dredged up a small smile. "Disease is the great leveler, Erin. If you're facing death, nothing else exists-money, fame, power all cease to be important. As for Caskie Royal, he said he was sympathetic, then actually threw his hands in the air. Told me he was trying his best to solve the unexpected production line problems brought on by overenthusiastic expansion, was the way he put it." Dr. Kender lowered his eyes to his clasped hands. "As if any moron would believe that. I mean, a company wants to expand and it doesn't determine the effects of said expansion on its current production of drugs?
    "It's a lie, of course. I'll admit it, I wanted to pull him out of his big executive chair and choke the life out of him.
    "There is another Schiffer Hartwin production laboratory for Culovort in Spain. Their PR folk came up with a new reason for aborting production-quality-control issues, they said, and even the possibility the production line might have been sabotaged. It will take them some time to ramp up production again, blah, blah, blah."
    "What about the media?"
    "The fact that a cancer drug isn't available isn't sexy enough for the national media to make a big issue of it, since there's a different drug on the market. The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post reported on the shortage and Schiffer Hartwin's response, but that's it. No digging, no real questioning of the company, and those two newspapers usually take an interest in medicine."
    Dr. Kender looked like he was at the end of his rope. There was anger in his gaunt face, but more than that, there was a sheen of hopelessness. He said on a sigh, "My dad, you never met him, Erin. He's old school, tough as nails, determined to take care of himself. We've discussed going on the oral cancer drug, but he's heard too many horror stories about the side effects, and he can't afford it in any case. If he's forced to go on it, he'll probably sell his house, and he's already told me there's no way he'll let me help. I've wanted to choke him for his misplaced pride, even though I completely understand it."
    He paused a moment. "I hate that he's suffering, and now this worrying about having to come up with twenty thousand dollars when the Culovort runs out. It's breaking his will. I don't want him to die like this." He looked down at his tasseled loafers, his shoulders bowed, like a man who's gone up against the giant and gotten smashed. Erin wanted to weep.
    He said quietly, "Do you know that in the U.S., about one hundred and fifty thousand people are diagnosed with colon cancer every year? I've written letters, sent e-mails, made phone calls to my elected representatives, to the FDA, until all I wanted was to shoot myself. No one seems to care except for the oncologists, the patients, and their beleaguered families, and they're powerless. I don't really know why I'm here. I knew you'd understand, Erin, but what can you do? What can anyone do to force the drug company to start up Culovort to full production again?"
    "What we need," Erin said, drumming her fingertips on the little banged-up desk she'd bought from Goodwill in her sophomore year at Boston College, "is to get hold of solid proof they know damned well what they're doing, and that they are profiting from it. Then the media will sit up and pay attention. They love drug company scandals, but they like them much more when they're presented on a nice big platter complete with fines of hundreds of million dollars."
    She rose, took both his hands in hers. "I don't know yet what I'm going to do, sir, but I do know that I'm going to try my best to find something that will help. Let me think about this, all right?"
    She knew he'd left without much hope, but she was fired up, her brain cooking. She spent three hours that evening on the