| General Fiction posted January 9, 2025 | Chapters: |
...20 21 -22- 
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Big Pharma's attack escalates
A chapter in the book The Devil Fights Back
The Devil Fights Back - Ch. 22
by Jim Wile
| Background Three intrepid women team up to conquer medical challenges. |
Recap of Chapter 21: Fran comes to Brian’s house to meet with the team and finds they have been up all night working. They fill her in on their progress and estimate they will be finished by New Year’s.
As a reward for their extreme efforts, Fran treats the team to dinner and a concert that night. On the way back to their cars, they run into a homeless man who Julia recognizes as a boy in her and Brian’s rehab group from 17 years ago. They learn his story of how he became homeless while treating him to a meal at McDonald’s. Alphonse tells them the woeful tale of how Dip (Dipraxa) has taken over his life. When Julia offers him help to get off it, he refuses it and leaves, leaving the team depressed but showing them the importance of the task they are working on.
Chapter 22
Dana
I was a little surprised to see how soon the next issue of Myalosoma was published—the one containing the hit piece against Glyptophan. It usually comes out at the very end of the quarter, and I expected it to come out the last week in December, but due to the holidays, perhaps they typically publish their fourth quarter magazine in the early part of the month.
I had warned Fran this was coming, and I hope Brian and his legal team took some steps to get his story out first, but as yet, I haven’t seen anything by him.
At any rate, the magazine came out today, and already I can see evidence of its impact on Facebook, X, and Tumblr using the hashtag #StopBigPharma. Although Brian is hardly Big Pharma, the postings on the dummy accounts my boss had someone set up for this were using this hashtag to get noticed. The different postings contained links to the following article in Myalosoma:
Recipe for Disaster
By Will Turlington
Is a pain-free life possible? And, if so, what are we willing to risk to achieve it? A new drug called Glyptophan is currently undergoing human trials to support its claim of being a non-addictive painkiller stronger than high doses of opioids. It purportedly is neither physically nor psychologically addictive but more along the lines of Tylenol, Aleve, and Advil—except 200 times stronger.
Is such a drug possible? If so, we can say goodbye to opioids and the approximately 80,000 overdose deaths per year ascribed to them in the U.S. Big Pharma must be quaking in its boots over the possibility of the slaying of its cash cows. But is there really cause for them to worry?
Far be it from me to attempt to put Big Pharma’s mind at rest because of all the damage they have wrought on the health of the populace, but I don’t think they need to worry about this upstart drug, Glyptophan, created by “Little Pharma.”
In fact, the creator is a single man by the name of Brian Kendrick, who invented it in his basement laboratory in Charlotte, North Carolina. An OxyContin addict himself, who suffered several near-fatal overdoses, Kendrick decided he needed to invent a non-addictive drug to control his own chronic pain. And what did he come up with in his first attempt? A drug he named Dipraxa.
You may be aware that the number one selling street drug that is cheap and gives the greatest purported high on the market is also called Dipraxa or Dip for short. This street drug is highly addictive and, taken even a single time, will hopelessly ensnare its users into immediate psychological dependence.
Is this just a coincidental name association, or is this the same drug invented by Brian Kendrick? Chemical analysis reveals that they are indeed one and the same. We can only assume that Kendrick sold his formula to the current manufacturer in Mexico for a tidy sum, for Kendrick now lives in a heavily guarded McMansion in an obscure little North Carolina town.
His first attempt, Dipraxa, obviously didn’t work, so he added a substance that modifies the genes in the brains of the user to disguise the addictive part. Dr. Frankenstein somehow got the FDA to approve his application to do human trials, and the phase-1 trials are now complete.
According to the results, although the pain was well-controlled, the side effects experienced by some of the subjects were horrendous. They included severe nausea, diarrhea, headaches, night sweats, restless legs, and jaundice, among others. Nobody knows what long-term effects changes to the genes in the brain will have. It’s also possible that over time, the effectiveness of the gene modification will diminish, and the new drug will become as addictive as the old one.
At the time of this writing, Kendrick is having trouble enlisting volunteers for the second phase of trials. Is it any wonder in light of the risks and potential dangers associated with it?
The article has been retweeted a number of times on X, shared on Facebook, and reblogged on Tumblr using not only the #StopBigPharma hashtag but also a number of others, such as #DontMessWithMyGenes. Word is getting out, exactly as that asshole Merra described it.
I’m going to tell Fran about this if she doesn’t already know. I know this doesn’t quite rise to the level of illegal. Libel is a possibility, if it could be proved, but libel is a civil matter, not a federal crime that the FBI would get involved in.
Maybe I need to stir the pot a little. It wouldn’t be like I’d be giving them ideas they wouldn’t consider doing themselves eventually. Perhaps I can speed up the timeline for getting the FBI involved in tapping Merra’s phone if I suggest something of an illegal nature to him. Maybe like a personal threat to Brian’s safety.
And maybe I just won’t tell Fran that I suggested the idea to Merra. I’ll just let her assume the idea came from him.
There’s one other thing I have to do besides get Merra’s agreement to physically threaten Brian. I’m going to need corroboration of the fact. I researched this some and found out that for the FBI to be granted a warrant for a wiretap, more than just a single CI’s word of a potential crime would be required. I’m going to need another witness to the crime, but I have an idea how to get that.
First things first, though. I set up a meeting with Leonard Merra for tomorrow morning.
I wore a low-cut, rather tight dress to the meeting with Merra. His door was open, and he was seated at his desk. I knocked on the frame and said, “Morning, Leonard.”
He looked up and stared for a moment before standing and saying, “Yes, Dana, come in, come in.” He came around his desk and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Why don’t we make ourselves comfortable over here?” he said, guiding me with his hand to a sofa over on the side of his spacious office.
Man, this guy gives me the creeps, but I let him guide me to the sofa. I sat down, and he sat quite near to me so that our knees were almost touching.
“You know, Leonard, your idea about the magazine article slamming Glyptophan was a stroke of genius. Already that article is garnering hundreds, if not thousands of views as a result of your social media blitz. Did you come up with some of those hashtags being used?”
“No, can’t say as I did. We’ve done this sort of thing a few times. I’ve got people who do this for me and are very good at it.”
“I guess they are. The response is just as you envisioned.”
He smiled broadly as I flattered him. I also caught him sneaking peeks at my peaks, so to speak. Hey, I’m a poet, and I didn’t even know it!
“You know, Leonard,” I said, moving a little closer to him so that our knees now touched, “I believe this is a good start, but I fear that Brian Kendrick will prepare a response to this, which might tend to negate some of its effect. What if we were to turn up the heat a little and maybe expand our attack to several fronts? If we begin to hit him on many sides, he may get discouraged sooner rather than later.”
“That’s a thought. What else did you have in mind?”
“What if we were to begin by issuing a gentle threat to him just to get him to think twice about the advisability of starting his phase-2 trial?”
“Hmm, like what sort of threat?”
“Well, I’m assuming you have a little more experience in this than me. I don’t know. What would be appropriate at this stage of the game?”
“Frankly, Dana, I haven’t been involved with physical threats before, nor, I believe, has the company. Our means of persuasion has stopped short of that in the past, but the situation is dire now, and the financial stability of the company is at defcon-1. A successful Glyptophan might push us into bankruptcy, seeing as how we recently lost our top two sellers when the FDA banned them for a few crummy deaths. I’ll have to think about this. Perhaps it is time to step up our game.”
“Could I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“I have a friend who may be able to help us with this. He has some experience in the, let’s say, coercion area. He used to work for a collections agency. Would you be willing to talk with him?”
“Hmm. I don’t know about this, but I guess I’d be willing to talk with him and see what he could offer. Why don’t you ask him and see if he’d be willing to sit down at a meeting to discuss it? I must say, I admire your initiative here, Dana, and your enthusiasm won’t go unnoticed.”
“Thank you, Leonard. I appreciate that. I hope I can continue to be of help. I’ll let you know when I’ve talked to him.”
As we stood, he squeezed my shoulder, and we headed for the door. “Thanks very much, Dana. I look forward to seeing you again soon.”
God, I feel like taking a shower after every meeting with that guy.
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. She is a world-class violinist who now plays in a bluegrass band.
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.
Leonard Merra: A vice president at the Big Pharma company where Dana works. He is in charge of stopping Glyptophan.
Steve Griffin: Dana's husband.
Alphonse: A Dip-addicted, homeless man who Brian and Julia met in rehab 17 years earlier.
Picture courtesy of Playground-v3
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