“The director says he’ll be delighted to say hello to some esteemed colleagues from Boston, provided you have the time to spare.”
“Absolutely,” Marissa said.
They followed Mr. Carstans up a flight of stairs. The furnishing in the director’s suite of offices was even more lavish than what they had already seen. It was as if they were visiting the office of the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company.
“Do come in!” the director said as he stood up from his desk to greet Marissa and Wendy. He shook hands with both, then indicated seats for them to make themselves comfortable. He then dismissed Mr. Carstans who discreetly left, closing the door behind him. Coming back to the women, the director said, “What about a fresh cup of coffee? I know you Yanks drink lots of coffee.”
Charles Lester was a large, heavyset man, but not as beefy as Carstans. He looked like a gracefully aging athlete still up to a good game of tennis. His face was tanned like everyone else’s in the city, and his eyes were set deep. He sported a thick mustache.
“Coffee would be fine with me,” Wendy said. Marissa nodded, indicating that she’d like the same.
Lester buzzed his secretary and asked her to bring coffee for three. While they waited, he engaged the two women in small talk, asking them what hospitals they were associated with and where they’d done their specialty training. Lester admitted that he’d done some fellowship work in Boston.
“You’re a physician?” Wendy asked.
“Very much so,” Lester said.
“Some of us prefer the English system of address. As a gynecological surgeon during my training in London, I became accustomed to the title ‘mister.” But as a doctor I haven’t been doing much clinical work of late. Unfortu Iss nately, I’ve been caught at this desk doing more administrative work than I would like.”
A steward brought in the coffee and served it. Lester added a touch of cream to his and sat back. He studied the women over the top of his cup, “Mr. Carstans mentioned to me that you were inquiring about an old journal article,” Lester said.
“Can I ask what the article was about?”
Marissa pulled the reprint from her shoulder bag and handed it to Mr. Lester. Like Mr. Carstans, he only glanced at it before handing it back.
“What is your interest in this?” he asked.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Marissa said.
“I have the time,” Lester answered.
“Well,” Marissa began, “both Dr. Wilson and I have the same infertility problem as the women described in the article: blocked fallopian tubes from tuberculosis.” She then went on to explain her background with the CDC and her training in epidemiology.
“When we found out the problem was occurring on an international scale, we decided to investigate. The article was sent to me by the CDC. We called the clinic here but were unable to reach the author.”
“What would you have asked him if you’d been successful in reaching him?” Lester asked.
“Two things in particular,” Marissa said.
“We wanted to know if he’d done any epiderniologic follow-up on the cases that were reported. We also wanted to know if he’d seen any new cases. Back in Boston we know of three other cases besides ourselves.”
“You do know that infertility in general is on the rise?” Lester said.
“Infertility from all causes, not just from blocked tubes.”
“We’re aware of that,” Marissa said.
“But even the increase in blocked tubes is usually a nonspecific inflammatory process or endometriosis, it’s not a specific infection, especially not something as relatively rare as TB. These cases raise a lot of epidemiological questions that should be answered. They might even represent some new, serious clinical entity.”
“I’m sorry that you’ve come such a long way to learn more about that article. I’m afraid the author had entirely contrived his data. It was an utter fabrication. Not a whit of truth to it. Those were not real patients. Well, maybe one or two were real cases.
The rest were fictitious. If you had reached me by phone I could have told you as much.”
“Oh, no,” Marissa groaned. The thought that the article could have been a hoax had never occurred to her.