BLIND TRIAL by Brian Deer (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📗

of which is that Dr. Poyser, our chairman, is regrettably unable to be with us, due to a terrorist alert at Frankfurt airport.”

Darker still. She felt her jaw sink. “Then there’s the weekend’s tragedy.” Two, three, four. “As many of you will already know, Dr. Gertrude Mayr—Trudy—our esteemed and much-loved colleague, our dear, dear friend, and to many of us a personal inspiration, sadly passed away as a result of a frightful domestic accident… I’d be grateful now if everyone would stand.”

SILENCE TICKED around the tilted heads as Doctorjee listened to his colon. He’d expected the company to lay on a buffet, or at least sandwiches for senior staff. But lunch was nothing—not even bar snacks—and he’d missed breakfast with Nandini and the girls.

His left leg throbbed. He ran a finger round the neck brace. Frankly, the discomfort was intolerable. If Trudy Mayr hadn’t departed for sublime adjudication, he would certainly have consulted an attorney.

And now he must stand here after such gross abuse. How he wished he’d never joined BerneWerner. Of course, she was British. And didn’t she revel in it: lording over her colonial subjects? How she would have loved to be portered to the hills for Darjeeling on a shady verandah. Having ascended from a career counting pig food supplements, she regarded the company as her manifest destiny: her inalienable, imperial Raj.

She trilled like a canary with that brittle, foolish voice. “Thank you so much. Marvelous. Yes.”

No, thank you, memsahib. He crashed to a chair, shooting bolts of agony through his hip.

He’d prepared a most eloquent epistle for this occasion. But madam insisted, “Not a word.” It would be Hendricksen, that sickly yellow corpse to his right, who would explain the science of WernerVac. Hendricksen: the fourth author, a genitourinary physician, who were it not for HIV would be fingering dicks and poking gonorrhea with a stick. Hendricksen: a man whose specialty was pus. And he was rising to give the keynote address.

“Colleagues, ladies, gentlemen, I feel like an impostor.”

Surely not?

“It’s Trudy Mayr you should be hearing from today.”

Well, that would be stimulating. Indeed, it would. Return of the Southern fried turkey. Doctorjee tuned out from the clap doctor’s blathering. He’d heard it all a hundred times before.

“Antigenic variants…” Hendricksen rambled. “Retrovirus challenge more difficult than coronavirus… RNA… correlates of immunity…” Blah, blah, blah… “Some felt this might never be accomplished…” Blah, blah…

The executive vice president riffled through his folder, broke the seal on a bottle of sparkling water, and poured a glass of refreshment.

Madam had insisted the event be moved here in case the media witnessed any “mishap.” The result was an audience to make an Athens lab meeting look like a focus group of Nobel laureates. The health and human services secretary was meant to sit beside him, but they put her off with talk of egg-throwing. To make up the numbers, they’d brought the first forty staff to cross the lobby in Atlanta this morning. He recognized the Mexican who stocked the vending machines. He probably couldn’t spell PhD.

“In that previous strategy, researchers noted that the V3 domain was a major antigenic target for serologic responses induced by candidate vaccines…”

Nobody was listening. Why would they bother? Half the audience were reading their folders. Some were chattering—and none too quietly. Frankly, some were being quite rude. Simone Thomas was brazen, holding papers above her head and waving to Stephen Kwong. Wang Lei Wu was kneeling on a chair, three rows back, to speak to Corinna Douglas behind.

“Paradoxically, the V3 loop was reported as hypervariable by some researchers and relatively stable by others…”

Doctorjee opened his folder and located the typescript. More interesting than Hendricksen, certainly.

WernerVac prevents infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1. We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled trial in adults at risk of HIV-1 infection at 71 trial sites in the United States, 8 in China, and 16 in South Africa.

Most concisely edited. Excellent.

The subjects (m=17,254; f=9,458) were randomly assigned to receive either WernerVac 300 micrograms or placebo…

He turned the page. The very air seemed to buzz. Hendricksen stumbled on a sentence. “Now… uhm… ahh… turning to cytotoxic T-lymphocytes…”

But a voice from the floor interrupted the lecture. It was Kwong. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Doctorjee looked up, then back to the page, leaning forward in the brace to see better. What did Kwong want? He was brandishing the typescript. The meaning of what? Good God.

Serious adverse events were documented, but not reported by the trial sponsor, including a suspected enhanced-progression, possibly deceptive imprinting, syndrome in which active HIV-1 infection was accelerated, and clinical disease manifestation worsened among 3 identified subjects randomized to WernerVac.

What in Vishnu’s name was this? How could this happen? Outrageous. We’re in trouble. Get out.

One volunteer in whom the syndrome was identified was euthanized by the sponsor in a bid to avoid public anxiety and damage to volunteer retention...”

“What is the meaning of this?

The volunteer was administered a lethal injection.

Now more were standing, waving papers, and shouting. Everyone talked at once.

Marcia Gelding stammered. Mr. Hoffman sprang up. Doctorjee flipped back to page one. His hands were trembling. He eyed the page, word by word.

Prevention of HIV-1 Infection with WernerVac

A phase III double-blind placebo controlled trial

Frank V. Wilson MD, Simone R. Thomas MD, Stephen Kwong PhD, Heinz Hendricksen MD, Wang Lei Wu MD MS, Maureen S. Valentine PhD, Viraj Grahacharya MD PhD MPH, Gertrude S. Mayr PhD, and H. Ben Louviere JD.

Sixty

BEN SETTLED on the trestle table next to module B and listened to the rising voices.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“Madam chair, I have a question.”

“May I speak?”

“Marcia, please.”

He’d cleared a space among the stacks of literature, and one hand now rested on The Time Has Come bumper stickers; the other on gray-and-pink folders. Beneath the table, his feet swung back and forth, back and forth, rasping cartons of cheap champagne.

Through the open double doors, he heard murmurs become utterances, utterances become calls, and calls become yells.

“Will somebody please say what’s going on?”

The switch had