Bundaberg but not without a price. The formula had a serious flaw.
Chapter 9
November 12, 1929
Chicago, Illinois
Seventeen months after the Bundaberg vaccine tragedy, Will Williams returned from his Australian holiday and looked up Jeremiah Trent. Trent wasn’t surprised to hear that, except for the families of the lost children, the majority of citizens had all but forgotten the event. Trent had not. Already well into his third year of medical school, Trent could smell the finish line. If all went as planned, his residency would begin in the fall. His future was crystallizing. Even the predictions of continued financial chaos for the country as a result of the stock market crash two weeks earlier had not diminished his enthusiasm. Most of the hundred thousand dollars he received from Richard Gurzi’s client was still intact, safely stored in a safety deposit box in what was considered by the experts to be the most solvent bank in Chicago. The fact that people would always need medical care only underscored what he perceived as a very bright and rewarding future.
It was nearly 6 P.M. A biting Chicago wind bore straight through Trent’s jacket as he walked home from his last class. He popped into a local diner to grab a few minutes of shelter and a cup of coffee. Snagging the last counter seat, he pulled the university’s weekly medical newspaper from his breast pocket. Half way through his coffee, he saw it. On the second to last page, reserved for general announcements that were usually ignored by almost everyone, Trent felt the world he left behind nearly a year earlier suddenly slap him in the face. He reread the announcement over and over.
Eli Lilly and Company has been granted a patent for a new product that, among many other possible uses, will be used primarily as a preservative in vaccines which will allow multi-dose vials which will help insure sufficient supplies of vaccines, particularly in times of epidemics. The trade name will be Merthiolate, and it will be marketed using the name Thimerosal.
Trent motioned to the waiter for a refill before turning back to the announcement. While distasteful, he couldn’t avoid it. Revisiting a subject he had buried for over two years was ruining his day. He recreated the formula on a mental blackboard. The chemical symbol for mercury was Hg, the single ingredient that he could not change. Mercury was toxic, a poison, but there was no method to make a vaccine preservative without it. He had hundreds of his own failed experiments to prove it. If there had been a way, I would have found it, he whispered to himself. He didn’t care whether Richard Gurzi purchased his formula to allow the Eli Lilly Company sufficient time to develop a different version of a preservative or if Lilly chose to market his exact formula. What still concerned him was that any formula with mercury in it did not come without baggage. By weight, his formula was fifty-percent mercury. A neurotoxin, mercury had the potential to damage nerve tissues in humans. Like bee stings, some people had violent reactions to their venom and some not. Mercury worked the same way. Some would be susceptible, some not. There was no way to predict the result. The formula worked perfectly in his lab tests, but he never had sufficient time to test its effects with multiple inoculations over a period of time. Without that scientific data, he feared repeatedly administering a vaccine with mercury to the same individual could be a crapshoot. Worse yet, most of those would be small children. Vaccines were vaccines, whether administered to adults or children, but there was a huge difference… body weight counted.
An hour later, Trent walked the remaining few blocks home totally oblivious to the Chicago cold. His mind was on more important matters. He rationalized that science often had to weigh the good versus the bad when developing new ideas and Lilly’s new formula would dramatically reduce vaccine shortages in times of epidemic crisis. Thousands of lives would be saved. If the formula being patented was his, he was certain there hadn’t been sufficient time to do any additional safety testing. He was certain that the attractiveness of immediate corporate profits may have managed to trump the need for further tests. Twenty-seven years after the Wright brothers made their first flight, aviation technology had advanced so far that Lindbergh was able to fly solo across the Atlantic. Advancements in medicine, if done properly, traveled a far slower path. If a new plane didn’t work, it crashed. Sometimes, one life may be lost. The results were immediate. Trent was certain the new vaccine formula would work, but the long-term effects remained untested and that process could not be shortened.
It was after midnight when Trent finally fell asleep. A single thought had kept him awake for hours. If only I had more time…
Chapter 10
September 2, 1945
USS Missouri
Port of Yokohama, Japan
It was pre-dawn. The USS Missouri was anchored in Tokyo Bay, preparing to host the commencement ceremonies that would receive Japan’s signed surrender and officially end World War II. Already on board were delegates of the Allied Powers, along with representatives from the United States. Leading the ceremonies would be the commander of the Allied troops in the Pacific, General of the US Army Douglas MacArthur. He would be flanked by US Navy Fleet Admirals Chester W. Nimitz and William F. Halsey. The final cog, marking the end of a war that had spanned the globe for six years, was about to officially come to a close. World War II would be officially over.
Below decks, General Medical Officer Jeremiah Trent was on duty, sitting at a cramped desk next to sickbay, preparing to listen in on the Missouri’s internal broadcast of the ceremonies. It had been nearly four years since he left his job as a medical professor at the University of Chicago. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he joined the Army, spending the last two years aboard the USS Missouri. Now, his address was about to change again. He would resume his professorship at the University of Chicago. Lake Michigan’s chilling winds would soon be part of his life once again.
When the Japanese and other delegations were in place, General MacArthur stepped before a battery of microphones linked to the rest of the world. “We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored. The issues, involving divergent ideals and ideologies, have been determined on the battlefields of the world and hence are not for our discussion or debate.”
Trent could hear MacArthur’s words as they were piped throughout the ship but, as important as they were, he was paying them no mind. He clutched a wrinkled letter from his wife that had arrived just hours earlier. He knew this historic day would forever be etched in his mind, but not for the same reason it would be remembered by the rest of the world. For long as he lived, each anniversary of Japan’s surrender would be a reminder of the saddest day of his life.
Later, with the ceremonies nearly over, Trent was officially off-duty and went topside. As bad as he felt, he wanted to experience a piece of history that only those privileged to be on board could witness. He arrived just as General MacArthur walked back to the microphones. “Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won…”
As MacArthur continued his oratory, Trent marveled at the ease with which such a hardened soldier could turn to statesman. This time he heard all of MacArthur’s words. “As I look back upon the long, tortuous trail from those grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear, when democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that he has given us the faith, the courage and the power from which to mold victory. We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph. From both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve peace.”
Trent battled his temptation to go below. His heart was elsewhere, but he fought through it and stayed for the duration of MacArthur’s speech.
That night, as Trent lay in his bunk his mind was far
