As he and the others continued, Rene receded and took notes. She had already created for herself a reputation as some self-appointed Ralph Nader watchdog. Besides, Nick was in charge and laying out a sensible strategy.
As she sat there, she tried to remind herself that everybody in this room—GEM Tech reps, nurses, physicians—were decent, well-intentioned professionals dedicated to the relief of patients suffering from dementia. Yet she could not help thinking that corporate agendas were at least as important as medicine—that decisions made in this room had as much to do the stock portfolios of GEM Tech investors as with science.
WHEN THE MEETING WAS OVER, Jordan Carr pulled her aside. “I think we’ve mapped out a good strategy. And maybe to an extent you’re right.”
“I think it makes sense.”
“And if there’s something to these episodes, we’ll deal with them.” And he patted her on the shoulder.
She nodded.
He lowered his glasses. “So how come you don’t seem pleased?”
“Because what I felt in there was just more pressure to downplay problems.”
“What pressure? What are you talking about?”
She opened her briefcase and pulled out a set of pearl earrings, two complimentary tickets to a Celtics game, more tickets to Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops concerts, and a year’s membership to Kingsbury Club, an upscale fitness center on the South shore. “And I’m not alone. Nurses, aides, and other home staffers are being flooded with GEM gifts including trips to Bermuda and Jamaica.”
“Complimentary gestures for working on the trials.”
“You mean standard practice in the industry.”
“In any industry, and nothing’s wrong with that.” Then he picked up the BSO tickets. “Not exactly payola.”
“No, but this is,” and she held up a letter. “From a Tanner Walker, chief financial officer at GEM—an offer of stock options.” She did not cite the specifics, but the letter, which had just arrived, said that in recognition of her services to the company and to victims of Alzheimer’s disease she was being granted options to purchase five thousand shares in GEM Tech for five dollars each. And that she had three years to exercise her option.
“Well, congratulations.”
“Congratulations?”
“Yes, you could be a wealthy woman in a few years.”
He was right. If Memorine was approved by the FDA, her own Memorine-driven stocks would in a year wipe out all her loans and still leave her with more money than she had ever dreamed of having. But that bothered her. For as long as she could remember, Rene had viewed health care workers, especially physicians, as good and trustworthy by nature. But while working on these trials she was witnessing bold-faced avarice—like that growing collection of Ferraris out the window.
As if picking up her thoughts, Carr said, “Look, don’t get me wrong. I’m not like that Michael Douglas character from
“Jordan, this isn’t an incentive, it’s bribery.”
“Bribery? That’s ridiculous.”
“Then tell me what I’m missing. First they intimidate us to silence about the Zuchowsky murder. Now they’re buying us off to underplay the flashbacks.”
“Nobody is buying anybody off. All that’s simply encouragement to do your best work—what you call employee incentives.”
“But I’m not an employee of GEM.” And she wanted to add that neither was he, or the fact that, under the guise of “incentives,” drug companies lined the pockets of doctors, showering them with fancy gifts to spouses and free trips to flossy ski slopes and tropical resorts in order to get them to write prescriptions for their products. And how nobody protested. Nobody raised the conflict-of-interest flag. And the reason was that drug companies had bottomless coffers to buy the best legal defense teams.
“This is about making sure we’re all insiders so we put the best possible light on the trials without appearing to cross the ethics line.”
“Nobody is asking anybody to cross the ethics line. And just keep in mind that if it weren’t for pharmaceutical companies, you wouldn’t have a job.” Then, as if an afterthought: “Or me, for that matter.”
“True, but it just doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, Rene, if you’re not comfortable with the stock options, then don’t exercise them.” And before he walked away, he added, “This is a fast-moving train coming down the tracks, and jumping in front won’t stop it.”
She watched him walk away, thinking that he seemed more interested in his silver bullet outside than Louis Martinetti’s private war with Colonel Chop Chop.
43
THREE DAYS AFTER HE WOKE UP, Jack was moved to a rehab floor referred to as the SNIF unit—shorthand for “skilled nursing facility.”
Here Marcy and a therapist wrapped his legs in Ace bandages to prevent his blood from pooling and laid him on a tilt table in preparation for sitting him up. Something about “orthostatic hypotension” and his “autonomic nervous system” adjusting to being upright again. He heard the words but didn’t bother to process the explanations.
They also monitored his blood pressure and heart rate, raising him to a slant of sixty-five degrees, moving him ten degrees at a time for five-minute increments. It took an hour to do this and he felt lightheaded. “If you don’t use it, you forget how to use it,” the therapist explained. “Being upright increases the vascular resistance on your autonomic nervous system. We don’t want your blood pressure to drop suddenly.”
Jack nodded. Whatever, he just knew that it felt good to be up, since some part of his mind sensed how long he had been on his back.
So much time had passed, yet he felt the heft of elusive memory just beneath the membrane of awareness —memory that manifested itself in incoherent flashes.
As they had since he woke up, the nurses and staff kept him chatting so that his voice grew stronger and the words came more easily. But it was like starting over, having to relearn how to do things that previously were all but involuntary activities.
In spite of the constant and aggressive physical therapy he had undergone while comatose, he had lost seventy-five percent of his muscle strength. But with the aggressive physical rehab program laid out for him, the therapist said that chances were good that he would be able to walk again in a month, probably with the assistance of a cane.
Since Jack had been fed through a gastric tube for so long, they were afraid that if he ate solids right away he might inhale some and end up in the hospital again. So he had been put on thickened liquids for two days, after which he graduated to mashed foods. It was like being a baby again, he said to Marcy.
In the afternoon of his third day awake, Marcy and the therapist sat Jack in a wheelchair and brought him to an office to meet the neurologist, a tall thin woman with a sharp bird face and reddish brown hair pulled back in a bun. She introduced herself as Dr. Vivian Heller. “Welcome back. How are you feeling?”
Jack’s left foot ached, his vision was still slightly blurry, and a beetle was crawling through his brain. “Fine.”
“I know how difficult this is, so confusing and all, but you’re going to go on the record books for coma recoveries.”
“Lucky me.”
“Well, you are lucky, since only a small percentage of long-term coma patients ever wake up, and so alert. It’s wonderful.”
