Patterns

After looking through the contents of the first folder, it seemed that people had voiced concerns over Lucidar from the start. But for whatever reason, doubts had never reached critical mass: instead they'd bubbled under, always at a low level.

But taken together, they told a disturbing story.

The internal memos I'd read, for instance, had documented the concerns of the scientist who'd overseen testing on capuchin monkeys. In an escalating dispute with one of the developers, she repeatedly made the same observation - which the developer (all the while copying in a number of people with serious-looking job titles) chose to ignore.

The following exchange was pretty typical:

Researcher (11/7/79) "...so, while there are no obvious side effects for the subjects involved directly in testing, we have repeatedly observed that offspring born to these subjects are invariably rejected by the mother and treated with extreme suspicion by other members of the group."

Devloper (13/7/79) "I read with delight that there are no side effects involved with the use of the new drug. Thank you for confirming this in your memo of 11th July."

Following this came numerous attempts to clarify, each met with the same selective reading.

Looking at the final draft of the animal-testing report on Lucidar, there was no mention of any anomaly connected with the drug - and human clinical trials seemed to mirror those results. Except, of course, that human beings lacked the instinctive ability to know that there was something very wrong with their young.

The result? Green lights all the way for Lucidar, with no-one in those days even questioning its suitability as a drug for pregnant women.



Story begins here.