| General Fiction posted December 31, 2024 | Chapters: |
...17 18 -19- 20 
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Big Pharma continues their smear campaign
A chapter in the book The Devil Fights Back
The Devil Fights Back - Ch. 19
by Jim Wile
| Background Three intrepid women team up to conquer medical challenges. |
Recap of Chapter 18: It’s time to take both Marie and Abby to the airport. Marie has extended her stay to 6 days since she enjoyed the time getting to know her family better and, especially, Johnny.
Abby leaves first, leaving Marie and her family to say goodbye. Marie expresses how much she enjoyed the trip and gives a group hug to Julia and Brian. After a special goodbye to Johnny, he calls her Gam-ma, which makes her day. She is invited back to spend Christmas with them.
Dana spends her final night in Charlotte with Fran and Mike before she, too, flies back to Philadelphia. They discuss Dana’s complicated friendship with Abby. On the way to the airport, Fran tells Dana to keep her eyes and ears open and look for opportunities to get closer to Leonard Merra, but not to do anything risky or dangerous.
Chapter 19
Dana
It’s been two weeks since my arrival back in Philly and the resumption of my job as the assistant marketing director. I’m looking at this job with renewed vigor since becoming an official CI for the FBI.
The day I returned, I went to see Leonard Merra, the vice president in charge of the anti-Glyptophan campaign. If I could make him think I was now an ally, maybe in an unguarded moment, he might reveal something he probably shouldn’t.
“I just wanted to let you know I’ve instructed my reps on what they should say about Glyptophan, and already, I’ve heard of some positive results coming out of this.” This wasn’t really true. I did say something to the reps about Glyptophan, but only in passing and not nearly as strongly worded as Leonard would have liked, but I had to say something in case he checked up on me. I also hadn’t heard anything in return about it.
“Is that so? What are their customers saying?”
“Something along the lines of, ‘Oh, God. That’s all we need is another addictive substance to deal with. It’s tough enough prescribing opioids now. We certainly don’t need something else to cause us hassles.’ You get the drift.”
“Excellent. Keep reminding your reps about it. Glad to see you’re finally onboard with this, Dana. Now it’s time to step up the game.”
“Oh, how do you propose to do that? Maybe I can help.”
“Maybe you can. I need someone to do some research and find me a small, relatively obscure medical journal—one of those holistic medicine ones. I want to plant a story idea with them about the evils of Glyptophan and how similar it is to young Kendrick’s first attempt—the notorious Dipraxa. We’ll stress how addictive Dipraxa is and tell them that Glyptophan may be a better analgesic but has the potential to be just as addictive. They won’t know until we tell them that both drugs were made by the same man. We could even cast aspersions that he may have been the one who sold it to the cartels.”
“But why an obscure holistic medicine journal? Wouldn’t any medical journal jump at a story like that?”
“There’s more. Our lab boys also found out that Glyptophan employs modification of genes in the brains of the people who take it. You know what the public thinks about messing with genes. I think if we can find some sort of holistic medicine journal, they would be more apt to write a scathing attack on both fronts.”
“Leonard, that’s brilliant. I’ll find us just the journal to break this story to.”
He was really warming to the subject now.
“And once we’ve done that, and it gets out in print, we can start a social media attack against it and maybe even get the TV news stations on board with the attack. As long as there is a written source of information somewhere, no matter how obscure the journal or accurate the article, that’s all most of them seem to need these days for sourcing.”
I decided I would call Fran tonight and give her an update on what I just heard.
It was 8:00 PM when I made the call using the burner phone and the appropriate app that would encrypt our conversation.
“Hi Dana. How are things? I presume since you’re using this phone that you have some information for me?”
I told her of my conversation with Leonard Merra this afternoon and how he’d asked me to help him find a journal to publish a defamatory article in.
“Well, as I told you,” said Fran, “Brian fully expects this and is prepared for it. He has a legal team in place to advise him on such matters. That’s good to know about Merra’s plans for social media and even the TV stations.”
“Yeah. You know how social media is. All of a sudden there are links to this article everywhere. Doesn’t matter how big the journal is or how warped the facts might be; everyone’s talking about it now.”
“You’re right. Great strategy on Merra’s part. But you know what a good defense lawyer does when there is something potentially troubling in his client’s past? He will bring it up first before the prosecutor. That way he can put the correct spin on it and take some of the sting out of the news. That’s most likely what Brian will be advised to do. This is all good what you’ve learned, Dana, but keep your eyes and ears open for the suggestion of an actual federal crime—something that can justify a wiretap. That’s our ultimate goal here, because I can’t really take this to my boss until we have such a suggestion.”
“Will do.”
I was able to find a small holistic health journal that published quarterly. It was called Myalosoma, which is Greek for Mind Body. The publisher is a trio of ‘Zoomers’ (Gen-Z’ers) in their late 20s out of Columbia University. The journal specializes in hit pieces against Big Pharma, Big Food, and Big Tobacco and has a circulation of 850 copies.
I fed the name to Leonard Merra, and he assigned a writer from the Medical Affairs Department to put together a bulleted list of points about the issues with Dipraxa, Glyptophan, and Brian Kendrick. This was to be sent to Myalosoma in hopes they would pursue an article in their next issue at the end of December.
I texted Fran and Brian about this and told them to look for an article soon. Finally, I felt like I was doing something important and worthwhile in my life.
Fran
Dana’s information was welcome, and she seemed to be taking her role as a CI seriously. As yet, there was nothing that rose to the level of a federal crime that could justify FBI involvement, but I was sure that would eventually come. I will continue to work with Dana, but we won’t be able to justify the wiretapping that I hope to do until we have something more concrete than disinformation.
Of more importance right now is the mission to stop the spread of Dipraxa. I managed to complete Abby’s background check in record time (two weeks instead of the usual four), mainly because she was squeaky clean. No surprise there. She came back yesterday, and I met her at the arrivals area of the airport.
“Welcome back, Abby. I hate to pull you away from your family at this time of year, but hopefully we’ll be done within the week and you’ll make it home easily in time for Christmas.”
“Don’t let that worry you, Fran. It’s not as important as this mission. I’ll stay either until we are successful or we know that we’ve failed and can’t solve it. But I have a good feeling about it. I’ve been studying the biochemistry of the Balanga plant. Brian and I have been on the phone quite often in the past couple of weeks, and he has explained the parameters of the problem already to me. I’ve also been brushing up on several areas of mathematics I haven’t used in a long time that I think will be helpful in the modeling we’ll be doing.”
“We will pay you for those hours you’ve already put into it,” I said.
“Okay. Thank you. By the way, your brother is amazing to work with. He is so patient with me as I try to muddle through the biochemistry and ask him a lot of dumb questions. He is such a clear explainer too.”
“Yes, he is. He was a teaching assistant while getting his master’s degree. I don’t imagine your questions were very dumb, though. So, Abby, when do you think you might need our computer expert?”
“I would say perhaps the day after tomorrow. Is that too short a notice?”
“I’ve already prepared her for it. It shouldn’t be a problem. I think you’ll enjoy working with her.”
We kept the conversation lighter the rest of the way to Brian’s. We talked some about college football and some about our pasts. I filled her in on Brian’s history with opioids and how he came to create his new drug. And I told her about Julia and how her support made it all possible.
Abby was easy to talk to and down-to-earth for such an intelligent person. I knew we had made a good choice in hiring her, and I had Dana to thank for bringing us together.
What if my wood floors hadn’t needed refinishing, which took me out of the house for a few days and to the Omni Hotel? I would never have met Dana and then Abby, and where would we be now? Funny the way things work out.
Fran Pekarsky: One of three narrators of the story. She is an FBI agent from the North Carolina field office in Charlotte.
Dana Padgett: One of three narrators of the story. She is the assistant marketing director for a Big Pharma company.
Brian Kendrick: Fran's younger brother. He is the inventor of Dipraxa and Glyptophan.
Julia Kendrick: Brian's wife.
Johnny Kendrick: Brian and Julia's baby boy and Marie's grandson.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother. She is the third narrator of the story.
Cedric (aka Cecil): The doorman at the apartment house where Marie lives.
Lou D'Onofrio: Fran's boss at the FBI.
Patty Mattson: A hacker friend of Fran's. The programmer on Brian's project.
Abby Payne (nee St. Claire): A girl from Dana's past, who she used to bully but has befriended during their adulthood. The mathematician on Brian's project.
Mike Pekarsky: Fran's husband. He is a DHS agent.
Willy Stubblefield: The leader of Julia's bluegrass band.
Shannon Stubblefield: Willy's wife and the drummer in the bluegrass band.
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