Hailey’s new medicine

Press, 18 January 1986, Page 20

Hailey’s new medicine

Strong Medicine. By Arthur Hailey. Pan, 1985. 476 pp. $9.95 (paperback). No sugar is needed to help Arthur Hailey’s “Strong Medicine” go down. The book is the latest in the American author’s list of investigations in fiction of particular industries and activities. This time he turns his attention to America’s drug industry. Perhaps his own medical condition prompted the choice of subject — “Strong Medicine” marks his return to writing after his retirement in 1979 and a quadruple heart by-pass operation. In a personal forward, Hailey explains: “The aftermath of everything was my revived good health and an abundance of energy

— so much of the latter that Sheila (Hailey’s wife) said one day, ‘I think you should write another book.’ I took her advice. ‘Strong Medicine’ is the result.” The story follows Celia Jordan from her start with a huge drug corporation as a saleswoman to her succession to the coporation president’s chair. It traces the history of drugs that benefit and destroy, the real, Thalidomide, and the imaginary, Montayne and Hexin W; looks at the American watchdog of new drugs, the Food and Drug Administration; and the sometimes unscrupulous selling methods used by drug companies. “Strong Medicine” is true Arthur Hailey — wellresearched and a good read. — Kay Forrester.