Another Whistle Blower: McGee and Big Pharma Criminals

By Carl Douglass

Another Whistle Blower is the sixth and final novella of Carl Douglass's McGee series. Pharmacist Cecil Edgington strikes it rich when he joins a pharmaceutical consortium to market a cancer wonder drug. Or is it too good to be true? He learns a little more, begins to suspect much more; and finally, he gets downright scared. That is when he seeks to counsel, assistance, and protection of McGee & Associates. McGee uncovers a vast conspiracy, a dangerous cabal, and a labyrinthine source of riches beyond his greatest imaginations. Cecil has a life-altering decision to make: should he stay with the consortium and get rich? Or should he become a whistleblower and live as a fugitive? That decision is the stuff of a riveting book and a life's lesson.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publication Consultants
• Release date: Jul 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781594335952

Carl Douglass

Author Carl Douglass desires to live to the century mark and to be still writing; his wife not so much. No matter whose desire wins out, they plan an entire life together and not go quietly into the night. Other than writing, their careers are in the past. Their lives focus on their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Book preview

Fourteen

Chapter One

The day has been long and boring, like most other days in pharmacist Cecil Edgington’s routine life. He begins tidying up and securing the prescription drugs in their locked bins. He has owned his drugstore—Sugarhouse Family Drugstore, at 1346 South Kensington Avenue in Salt Lake City, Utah--for thirty-two years. His day’s end activities have become a matter of rote. He is mildly disappointed in himself. His dreams as a young man to become an affluent owner of a chain of family drugstores around the Western United States has come to naught like those of many of his fellow self-employed pharmacists. His wife is bored with him and his overly conscientious attention to the store and everything that goes on there. His two adolescent sons were neglected by their father in their early childhood sports careers; and now, they neglect him as being largely irrelevant. He cannot argue effectively against their opinion.

Cecil is a tidy little man—five feet nine inches tall, 138 pounds in weight—with greying and balding hair, an average face that was never attractive to women, and an off-putting fastidiousness in his personality. He has a minor nervous twitch involving his right eye—his doctor calls it intermittent stress-related essential blepharospasm—and an annoying stammer when he gets stressed. He is one of the grey/invisible people to whom few pay any heed. He has many acquaintances but few friends. Most of his associations are superficial and related to his life as a drugstore owner.

If the truth be known, Cecil Edgington would love to chuck it all, move from Utah with its unpleasant winters, and go to California or Hawaii where it is warm. Whenever that thought crosses his mind, he recalls an oft-quoted question asked frequently by a long-ago governor of Utah, J. Bracken Lee, Where we gonna get the money? and has a little laugh at his own expense.

Two men with smooth suntans and expensive tailored suits walk into the store at quarter to five. Cecil wants to leave early, but this is obviously business—and he feels obligated to honor the listing of his store hours plainly printed on the glass front entry door. Cecil has one pride in himself: he is scrupulously honest; and that is associated with punctuality, reliability, and a strict adherence to both the spirit and the letter of the law in his personal and business life.

He sighs, and asks, What can I do for you, gentlemen?

The taller of the two says in a soft Florida accent, Well, my friend, it may well be what we can do for ya’ll.

That sounds like a tip-off that this is going to be a sales pitch to Cecil. The two men are older than the usual drug reps, and considerably better dressed. Both give Cecil a heartwarming, perfect white even-teeth smile emanating from golden-brown tropical tanned faces. Cecil reckons that those smiles cost each man between $25,000 and $30,000—no, they are not the usual struggling drug reps.

I am about to close, he looks pointedly at his watch; so, I can give you fifteen minutes. Then I have some important matters to attend to outside the store.

He gives the younger men a rather knowing, unwhitenedteeth avuncular smile.

Ya’ll have a place where we could sit and look at some papers across a table, Mr. Edgington? We are busy, too; so, we won’t keep ya’ll long.

Cecil wonders why the man refers to him in the plural. It is a prejudicial thought that comes to mind because he does not want to have his routine disturbed.

Okay. We can go to my office.

As soon as the three of them get seated around Cecil’s small round lunch table, the younger of the two men—the movie star-handsome one—begins the serious conversation.

Mr. Edgington, sir, we are part of the OrganoNatural Pharmaceutical Marketing Consortium….

Well, that’s one I never heard of, Cecil interrupts, but then, I’ve only been in the business for thirty-six years, including the last thirty-two right here on Kensington Av.

Why, sir, that’s highly commendable. You are the sort of stable businessman we are seeking. We would very much like you to become part of our consortium family. We believe we can improve your business flow and your bottom line by fifty percent minimum. Many of our people in the South—where our main efforts have been so far—have seen truly phenomenal improvements in the range of seventy to eighty percent increases.

You have my attention, Cecil says to them, and thinks to himself, And it sounds like too good to be true to himself.

Awright then, first let me tell you that the consortium is a powerful alliance between HealthFirst, PharmaPerfect, FitnessSupplementAid, and ZyterBrothersTechnologies. We are serious people, Mr. Edgington … would it be okay with you if we got less formal and called you Cecil?

Sure.

Those are the four largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, not just America. Now, Cecil’s attention is piqued for real.

"Real good. I’m Kendrick Smuthers and this is David Carter-Smyth—Kenny and Dave. We’re what you might call the point men for a new way of competing in the ever increasingly competitive world of big pharma. Our economists, marketing gurus, and publicists have been working on a plan for some time now to help get the small pharmacies and pharmacists on board to create a powerful answer to some of the giants that can sell cheaper and more because their inventory is so huge, their advertising outlay is so high—about like the Republican Party in an election year—and their influence with the docs and pharmacists is so strong. They’ve more or less locked up the API [Australian Pharmaceutical Industries], Sigma Pharmaceuticals, and National Pharmacies in Australia; Brasil Pharma, Drogaries DPSP, Pague Menos, and Profarma in Brazil; Brunet, DRUGStore Pharmacy, Familiprix, Katz Group, Lawtons, and Pharmasave in Canada; China Nepstar and Watsons in China; Apoteket AB, Apoteket Hjärtat, and Apoteksgruppen in Sweden … well, you get what I’m telling you. The list goes on and on.

We’ve made good progress … actually, very good progress, in the US with quite a few of the big twenty-five like Walmart, Macy’s, Walgreens, Costco, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger, and Target, etc. You get that picture. We’ll get a bigger foot in the door with the major wholesalers as time goes on because we have a concept, like the Godfather said, ‘It’s a deal you can’t turn down.’

He laughs vigorously at his own effort at humor.

But, why have we come to see you, Cecil? Because guys like you—the little guys—have been neglected, left out of the big picture because they aren’t organized and don’t have a strong voice. Today, we are here to convince you that our plan will be your voice.

Like I said, I’m listening.

He sneaks a glance at his manufacture 1995 rugged, reliable, and cheap Russian Raketa 2623H caliber watch, a visible testament to his careful frugality. He found it online.

"To date, we have eight thousand smaller pharmacies with us, and by the end of the year, we expect to have between twelve and fifteen thousand. That many guys like you agree that our strategy is the one for them. This is the way we work:

First of all, we work mainly with the established and reliable outlets with clearly defined marketing guidelines including Medicare, Medicaid, the VA system, and all branches of the US Military through the DOD. Second, we have hired an advisory group consisting of former IRS, DOD, Social Security, CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services], federal attorneys, and university professors who know everyone and everything there is to know about the PPACA [Patient Portability and Accountable Care Act]. That committee keeps us able to streamline our approach, to get the maximum prices from the government, and—of course—keeps us honest … or at least legal all the way, he says with a laugh.

"Let’s get down to brass tacks. What do you have to do? Easy. We want you to use your considerable local influence to push the products from the consortium—HealthFirst, PharmaPerfect, FitnessSupplementAid, and ZyterBrothersTechnologies—which in the pharmaceutical world covers about everything from soup to nuts. We’ll supply you the meds at very favorable wholesale prices, and you can offer them to your customers and the doctors who prescribe for them at the best prices they’ve ever seen. After a while—once they’ve come to realize that your drugstore is the place to do their shopping and prescription filling, and that our medications are at least the match of anything they’ll find anywhere else—we can gradually increase the prices up out of the give-away range. You’ll sign on under the Utah Group of ONPM [OrganoNatural Pharmaceutical Marketing] which is divided up by counties. An incentive for you is to get other pharmacists to sign up. For every one who does, you get half a percent of everything that pharmacist sells. You will be paying that little bit to a pharmacist who works for Smith’s in Ogden. He pays a little bit to a group of pharmacists organized in Denver, and so on. We rebate you half a percent of your sales to your personal accounts. One of the great advantages