As she bent down to retrieve her bag from beneath her desk—quietly, so as not to disturb their conversation—she heard her boss say, “Forty out of ten thousand? Jesus.”
The words didn’t make her blood run cold. But the way her boss spoke them did. Some deep-seated intuition told Finley this conversation was not meant for anyone to overhear.
Her instincts screamed at her to get away. But Finley felt physically frozen, rooted in her little cubicle just outside her boss’s office.
She knew her company was developing a new migraine medication called Rivanux. Human trials were underway in India, where the drug would be manufactured, since production costs are far cheaper overseas. Phases One and Two of the trials had reportedly gone well.
Now they were in Phase Three, a much bigger trial, with ten thousand human subjects.
Forty out of ten thousand.
Finley kept listening. She stayed crouched in her cubicle, her legs aching from holding the deep squat, until the two men finally left, passing just inches from her hiding spot.
As she lay in bed that night, snippets of the conversation she’d overheard ran through her mind: Hemorrhagic shock … Coma.… At least one percent already dead …
Scrapping Rivanux would be an enormous blow to Finley’s company. Stock prices would dip; shareholders would be furious. The ripple effects would include finger-pointing, layoffs, and stories in the pharma trade publications.
Finley returned to work, assuming that production of Rivanux would immediately be halted. Instead, a few weeks later, her boss emailed her a press release to proof.
The headline made her gasp: RIVANUX POISED TO WIN FDA APPROVAL. According to the release, the drug had performed exceptionally well during its trials, with only minor side effects.
As she stared at the words on the press release, Finley realized her company was engaging in a massive cover-up. She theorized that they must have altered the data on the trials, knowing the FDA would never sanction a deadly drug.
My company is going to kill people.
As I watched Finley sink lower into her chair, her words ebbing into a hoarse whisper, I knew what I was supposed to do: Maintain a proper professional distance. Discuss Finley’s feelings and fears. Encourage her to explore the possibility of coming forward to the authorities.
That’s exactly what I did, for the rest of the session. Though Finley seemed to be telling the truth, I couldn’t help wondering if she was exaggerating. So after she left, I did a little research of my own. The headlines I saw left me equal parts terrified and enraged:
Bayer and Johnson & Johnson are charged with downplaying the life-threatening risks associated with Xarelto … Merck pleads guilty and pays $950 million to settle liabilities for misbranding the safety of the painkiller Vioxx … Eli Lilly misbrands the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa for the treatment of dementia and other disorders in elderly patients and has to pay millions in criminal and civil settlements.
And on and on, case after case. One article claimed that millions of prescriptions for unsafe drugs had been filled in the United States within the past two decades alone.
During Finley’s next session—her second—I looked at the hunched, scared twenty-six-year-old who’d stumbled upon an explosive secret and realized that, even though a percentage of people who took Rivanux would likely die, I wasn’t sure she would ever report her employer.
She knew what could happen to her because it had happened to other whistle-blowers: They’d start by creating a reason to fire her. Then they’d discredit her—much like a prosecutor going after a defendant on the stand. They could launch a social media smear campaign against her. They could physically threaten her, or her family.
And perhaps they would follow through.
After all, Finley could cost her company hundreds of millions of dollars. And her company had already shown that to protect its profits it would play fast and loose with the health and safety of individuals.
Finley wasn’t strong enough to speak out and endure all that would follow.
So I did it for her.
I phoned the FDA’s anonymous whistle-blower hotline and spoke to the man who answered, giving him all the details I knew. I trusted the system would do what it promised—provide anonymity—so I called from my cell phone.
I didn’t reveal my name and I kept Finley completely out of it.
My second phone call was to Finley, so I could explain what I’d done.
Before I finished talking, she hung up on me.
Still, I felt a rock-solid surety in my decision: violating my professional oath by breaking the confidence of a client was the right thing, the moral thing, the only thing, to do.