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Mele thought for a moment. "There's no reason why I can't tell you. It was a paper that Vic and I wrote for a journal called Psychopharmacology, but it was never published. Philip Morris made us withdraw it."
That's it, thought Gary. That's what we're looking for...
"A year after we left Philip Morris, we resubmitted the nicotine article to Psychopharmacology," Mele said. "We figured that after so much time we might get away with it."
"What happened?" asked Tom.
"Same thing as happened the first time. Philip Morris found out about it, and they exercised the confidentiality clause in our contracts. They threatened to sue if we tried to publish. We had to withdraw it again." After that they stopped trying.
Mele was still on the speakerphone, and Mitch leaned forward as he said, "We would very much like to see this paper, but we understand you no longer have a copy."
"That's right."
"Aside from DeNoble, do you have any idea who might have one?"
"I'm sorry, no."
Mitch tried another tack. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine that like any other scientific paper, this one must have gone through a peer review process. Am I right?"
"That's right."
"Would you happen to remember the name of the journal's editor?"
There was a silence, and then Mele said, "He was called a Field Editor, and I think his name was Barry."
"First or second name?"
"Surname. That's right, it was Herbert Barry. I think he was at the University of Pittsburgh."
"Any idea what department?"
"Pharmacology, I guess. It would have to be."
Mitch turned to me and gave a silent thumbs-up. His lips formed the word, Bingo!
Excerpted by permission of PublicAffairs, Inc. Copyright © 2001 David Kessler.