G. D. Searle & Company

Mm-hmm.

During the trial, John Rock ended up choosing a higher dose of synthetic oral progesterone, which was made by a pharma company, G.D. Searle.

The brand name at the time was called Envoid.

Hmm.

[dramatic music] April 1977, Illinois, one month after the FDA announced its intention to ban saccharin.

In a conference room, GD Searle & Company is hosting its annual shareholder meeting.

Founded in 1888 by a Chicago chemist, Searle is now a major pharmaceutical company famed for introducing Enovid, the first oral contraceptive.

But these days, the company's ailing.

It has delivered eight straight quarters of weak earnings, and its stock price has dropped by half.

The company is also under investigation for its animal safety research practices, accused of, at best, sloppiness, and at worst, deliberate falsification, including concealing tumors that developed in lab animals during tests.

The fallout has led to some of Searle's new products being denied approval, including a new artificial sweetener called aspartame.

With the business in crisis, Searle's board of directors is parachuting in a new CEO, Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense in President Ford's administration.