“Here’s the Royal College of Pathology’s publication. That’s the best way to locate a pathologist, at least in terms of his professional associations.”
Leaving the shelves, Mrs. Pierce strode off at a determined pace. Marissa and Wendy hurried after her.
“She must do triathlons on the weekends,” Wendy muttered under her breath to Marissa.
Mrs. Pierce led them to another corner of the periodical room.
“This section here,” she said, making a sweeping gesture with her hand, “is devoted to FCA-related articles. So that should keep you busy for a while. If you have any further questions, please feel free to come see me back in the office.”
After Marissa and Wendy thanked Mrs. Pierce, she left them on their own.
“Okay, what first?” Wendy asked.
“Look Williams up in the book you’re holding,” Wendy said.
“If it says he’s gone to Perth I’ll scream. Did you know that’s about three thousand miles away from here?”
Wendy set the book on top of one of the periodical shelves and turned to the his. There was no Tristan Williams.
“At least he’s not in Perth,” Wendy said.
“I guess Mr. Charles Lester was telling us the truth,” Marissa said.
“Did you doubt him?” Wendy asked.
“Not really,” Marissa answered.
“It would have been too easy for us to check.” She scanned the surrounding shelves.
“Let’s take a look at some of this FCA material.”
For the next hour Marissa and Wendy pored over articles on a wide range of topics related to reproductive technology. The scope and breadth of FCA research was as impressive as the clinic itself. It soon became clear that FCA had played a pioneering role in fetal fertility research, especially in regard to the use of fetal tissue for treatment of metabolic and degenerative diseases.
Most of the articles they merely skimmed. Those dealing with in vitro fertilization they put aside. Once they had finished a cursory look at all the material, they turned back to the articles on in-vitro fertilization.
I’m impressed but confused,” Wendy said after half an hour.
“I must be missing something.”
“I have the same feeling,” Marissa said.
“When you read these articles in sequence, it shows that their percent success per cycle in terms of achieving pregnancy was going up every year. Like for five cycles the success rate went from twenty percent in 1983 to almost sixty percent in 1987 “Exactly,” Wendy said.
“But what happened in 1988? Maybe it’s a misprint.”
“Can’t be a misprint,” Marissa said.
“Look at the data for 1989.” She tossed a paper onto Wendy’s lap. Wendy studied the figures.
“Curious that they didn’t even calculate the per-cycle pregnancy rate after they’d made such a big deal out of doing it in every other year.”
“It’s a simple calculation,” Marissa said.
“Do it yourself for five cycles.”
Wendy pulled a piece of paper from her purse and did the division.
“You’re right,” she said when she’d finished.
“It’s the same as 1988, and when compared to 1987, it’s much worse. Less than ten percent. Something was going wrong.”
“Yet look at the pregnancy rate per patient,” Marissa said.
“Iley changed the basis of their reporting. 11ey didn’t talk about achieving pregnancy per cycle anymore, they switched to pregnancy per patient. And that still went up in both 1988 and 1989.”
“Wait a second,” Wendy said.
“I don’t think that’s possible. I want to graph this stuff. Let me see if I can find some paper.”
Wendy walked over to the reference desk.
Meanwhile, Marissa went back to the figures. As Wendy suggested, it didn’t seem possible for rates per cycle to go down while rates per patient went up. And not only that, the pregnancy rate per patient in 1988 approached eighty percent!
“Ta da!” Wendy said as she came back, triumphantly waving several sheets of graph paper. She set to work, swiftly sketching two graphs.
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2A
3 It 5 7 8 1
CYCLE
After briefly studying her efforts, she pushed the paper across the table to Marissa.
“There has to be something we’re missing,” she said.
“This still doesn’t make sense to me.”
Marissa examined the graphs Wendy had drawn. It didn’t make sense to her either. Seeing the supposedly related curves going in different directions seemed contradictory.