When she walked into her office, her mail had already been opened by Henriette, the second secretary, and neatly placed on her desk. Elizabeth went through it quickly, initialing some memos, writing questions on others, or marking them for various department heads. At the bottom of the pile was a large sealed envelope marked “Elizabeth Roffe—Personal.” Elizabeth took a letter opener and slit the envelope across the top. She reached in and took out an 8-by-10 photograph. It was a close-up of a mongoloid child, its bulging eyes staring out of its encephalic head. Attached to the picture was a note printed in crayon: “THIS IS MY BEAUTIFUL SON JOHN. YOUR DRUGS DID THIS TO HIM. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU.”
Elizabeth dropped the note and the picture, and found that her hands were trembling. Henriette walked in with a handful of papers.
“These are ready to be signed, Miss—” She saw the look on Elizabeth’s face. “Is something wrong?”
Elizabeth said, “Please—ask Mr. Williams to come in here.” Her eyes went back to the picture on her desk.
Roffe and Sons could not be responsible for anything so dreadful.
“It was our fault,” Rhys said. “A shipment of drugs was mislabeled. We managed to recall most of it, but—” He raised his hands expressively.
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Almost four years ago.”
“How many people were affected?”
“About a hundred.” He saw the expression on her face and added quickly, “They received compensation. They weren’t all like this, Liz. Look, we’re damned careful here. We take every safety precaution we can devise, but people are human. Mistakes are sometimes made.”
Elizabeth sat staring at the picture of the child. “It’s horrible.”
“They shouldn’t have shown you the letter.” Rhys ran his fingers through his thick black hair and said, “This is a hell of a time to bring it up, but we have a few other problems more important than this.”
She wondered what could be more important. “Yes?”
“The FDA just gave a decision against us on our aerosol sprays. There’s going to be a complete ban on aerosols within two years.”
“How will that affect us?”
“It’s going to hurt us badly. It means we’ll have to close down half a dozen factories around the world and lose one of our most profitable divisions.”
Elizabeth thought about Emil Joeppli and the culture he was working on, but she said nothing. “What else?”
“Have you seen the morning papers?”
“No.”
“A government minister’s wife in Belgium, Mme. van den Logh, took some Benexan.”
“That’s one of our drugs?”
“Yes. It’s an antihistamine. It’s contraindicated for anyone with essential hypertension. Our label carries a clear warning. She ignored it.”
Elizabeth felt her body beginning to tense. “What happened to her?”
Rhys said, “She’s in a coma. She may not live. The newspaper stories mention that it’s our product. Cancellations on orders are pouring in from all over the world. The FDA notified us that it’s starting an investigation, but that will take at least a year. Until they finish, we can keep selling the drug.”
Elizabeth said, “I want it taken off the market.”
“There’s no reason to do that. It’s a damned effective drug for—”
“Have any other people been hurt by it?”
“Hundreds of thousands of people have been helped by it.” Rhys tone was cool. “It’s one of our most effective—”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“A few isolated cases, I suppose, yes. But—”
“I want it taken off the market. Now.”
He sat there, fighting his anger, then he said, “Right. Would you like to know what that will cost the company?”
“No,” Elizabeth said.
Rhys nodded. “So far you’ve only heard the good news. The bad news is that the bankers want a meeting with you. Now. They’re calling in their loans.”
Elizabeth sat in her office alone, thinking about the mongoloid child, and about the woman who lay in a coma because of a drug that Roffe and Sons had sold her. Elizabeth was well aware that these kinds of tragedies involved other pharmaceutical firms as well as Roffe and Sons. There were almost daily stories in the newspapers about similar cases, but they had not touched her as this had. She felt responsible. She was determined to have a talk with the department heads who were in charge of safety measures to see if they could not be improved.