Free Alexander Mccall Smith - Isabel Dalhousie 05 by The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday

in patients.
    â€œEverything was going perfectly well, and then, very much to his surprise, a patient who had taken the drug developed pretty serious side effects. Heart palpitations, Stella said. And another one turned up with the same sort of thing. Alarm bells started to ring.”
    If Jamie had been indifferent to the story at the beginning, he no longer was. “What was that drug that was so disastrous? The one that people used before they realised that it caused terrible birth defects?”
    â€œThalidomide. I suppose this was a bit different. The patients were all right, even if things were a bit scary for them. Anyway, Marcus was asked by the health authorities to look into these cases. He did that, and he also published a report in a medical journal in which he showed that both of these patients had been given a massive overdose of the drug: one was a drug addict and had self-administered it in the deluded belief that he would get some sort of hit from it; the other was the victim of a nursing error. So he claimed that everything was fine and that the drug was perfectly safe within the limits they set for this sort of thing.”
    She sensed Jamie’s absorption in the story, and was pleased. “But,” Isabel went on, “there was an unpleasant surprise around the corner. A few weeks later he published his findings, in the form of a letter in one of the big medical journals—a few weeks after he had said everything was perfectly safe, a man up in Perthshire was given the drug and promptly died. There was an enquiry and the hospital authorities took a closer look at Marcus’s original report—the one that said that everything was perfectly all right. And what did they find?”
    Jamie frowned. “That he’d made a mistake?”
    â€œYes. But more than that. The data in his original paper was shown to have been falsified. It was something to do with the level of the dosage.”
    They walked on. Jamie was lost in thought; then he spoke. “I see where this is going. The implication was that he had an interest in keeping the drug manufacturers happy and that he falsified the figures for their sake. For money.”
    That was not what Stella had suggested, Isabel explained. She had said that although the press had had a field day and blamed Marcus for the death, they had not accused him of doing it for money. But he had been reported to the General Medical Council and he had been heavily censured for issuing a misleading report. He resigned from his university chair, too, and stopped all medical work.
    â€œA rather sad story,” said Jamie. “Sad for everybody.” He paused. “And she wants you to…” He looked at Isabel. “She wants you to clear her husband’s name? Is that it?”
    Isabel nodded.
    â€œOh, Isabel!” exploded Jamie. “What’s this got to do with you? What’s this got to do with being the editor of the
Review of Applied Ethics,
for heaven’s sake?”
    â€œEverything,” said Isabel.
    Jamie looked puzzled. “I’m sorry…”
    â€œShe says that he’s completely innocent. That’s what it’s got to do with me. An innocent man is now consumed with shame for something he didn’t do. That has something to do with all of us, I would have thought. And it just so happens that I have been asked by his wife to do something about it. That brings me into a relationship of—”
    â€œMoral proximity with him,” said Jamie. “Yes, I know all about that. You’ve told me about moral proximity.”
    â€œWell, then,” said Isabel. “There you have it.”
    â€œBut how can you believe her—just like that?”
    â€œShe seemed to me to be telling the truth.”
    â€œBut what wife wouldn’t? Of course spouses protest that their spouses are innocent. Mothers do it too. Presumably Mrs. Stalin took the view that her son Joe was widely