Patrick Roche Quotes

The truth was, Librium and Valium were marketed using such a variety of gendered mid-century tropes—the neurotic singleton, the frazzled housewife, the joyless career woman, the menopausal shrew—that what Roche’s tranquilizers really seemed to offer was a quick fix for the problem of “being female.

Roche hadn’t just blithely assumed that the powerful drugs it was about to introduce to the public would be safe: the company had deliberately obfuscated evidence to the contrary. In

Er meinte natürlich, er habe noch nie so etwas Schönes gerochen. Aber da er doch Menschengerüche kannte, viele Tausende, Gerüche von Männern, Frauen, Kindern, wollte er nicht begreifen, daß er so exquisiter Duft einem Menschen entströmen konnte. Üblicherweise rochen Menschen nichtssagend oder miserabel. Kinder rochen fad, Männer urinös, nach scharfem Schweiß und Käse, Frauen nach ranzigem Fett und verderbendem Fisch. Durchaus uninteressant, abstoßend rochen die Menschen ... Und so geschah es, daß Grenouille zum ersten Mal in seinem Leben seiner Nase nicht traute und die Augen zuhilfe nehmen mußte, um zu glauben, was er roch.

Roche offered a different interpretation: while it might be true that some patients appeared to be abusing Librium and Valium, these were people who were using the drug in a nontherapeutic manner. Some individuals just have addictive personalities and are prone to abuse any substance you make available to them. This attitude was typical in the pharmaceutical industry: it’s not the drugs that are bad; it’s the people who abuse them.

Pfizer had a tranquilizer that it recommended for use by children with an illustration of a young girl with a tearstained face and a suggestion that the drug could alleviate fears of “school, the dark, separation, dental visits, ‘monsters.’” But once Roche and Arthur Sackler unleashed Librium and Valium, no other company could compete.

Er wollte sich, und wenn es vorläufig auch nur ein schlechtes Surrogat war, den Geruch der Menschen aneignen, den er selber nicht besaß. Freilich den Geruch der Menschen gab es nicht, genausowenig wie es das menschliche Antlitz gab. Jeder Mensch roch anders, niemand wußte das besser als Grenouille, der Tausende und Abertausende von Individualgerüchen kannte und Menschen schon von Geburt an witternd unterschied. Und doch - es gab ein parfümistisches Grundthema des Menschendufts, ein ziemlich simples übrigens: ein schweißig-fettes, käsig-säuerliches, ein im ganzen reichlich ekelhaftes Grundthema, das allen Menschen gleichermaßen anhaftete und über welchem erst in feinerer Vereinzelung die Wölkchen einer individuellen Aura schwebten. Diese Aura aber, die höchst komplizierte, unverwechselbare Chiffre des persönlichen Geruchs, war für die meisten Menschen ohnehin nicht wahrnehmbar. Die meisten Menschen wußten nicht, daß sie sie überhaupt besaßen, und taten überdies alles, um sie unter Kleidern oder unter modischen Kunstgerüchen zu verstecken. Nur jener Grundduft, jene primitive Menschendünstelei, war ihnen wohlvertraut, in ihr nur lebten sie und fühlten sich geborgen, und wer nur den eklen allgemeinen Brodem von sich gab, wurde von ihnen schon als ihresgleichen angesehen. Es war ein seltsames Parfum, das Grenouille an diesem Tag kreierte.

But the truth was, Librium and Valium were marketed using such a variety of gendered mid-century tropes—the neurotic singleton, the frazzled housewife, the joyless career woman, the menopausal shrew—that as the historian Andrea Tone noted in her book The Age of Anxiety, what Roche’s tranquilizers really seemed to offer was a quick fix for the problem of “being female.

But the truth was, Librium and Valium were marketed using such a variety of gendered mid-century tropes—the neurotic singleton, the frazzled housewife, the joyless career woman, the menopausal shrew—that as the historian Andrea Tone noted in her book The Age of Anxiety, what Roche’s tranquilizers really seemed to offer was a quick fix for the problem of “being female.” Roche

was, Librium and Valium were marketed using such a variety of gendered mid-century tropes—the neurotic singleton, the frazzled housewife, the joyless career woman, the menopausal shrew—that as the historian Andrea Tone noted in her book The Age of Anxiety, what Roche’s tranquilizers really seemed to offer was a quick fix for the problem of “being female.

But the truth was, Librium and Valium were marketed using such a variety of gendered mid-century tropes– the neurotic singleton, the frazzled housewife, the joyless career woman, the menopausal shrew– that as the historian Andrea Tone noted in her book The Age of Anxiety, what Roche’s tranquilizers really seemed to offer was a quick fix for the problem of “being female.

Librium and Valium were marketed using such a variety of gendered mid-century tropes—the neurotic singleton, the frazzled housewife, the joyless career woman, the menopausal shrew—that as the historian Andrea Tone noted in her book The Age of Anxiety, what Roche’s tranquilizers really seemed to offer was a quick fix for the problem of “being female.

and the Medical Tribune featured articles that tended to be favorable to Arthur and his clients. It also featured lots of advertising. “The Medical Tribune was his baby,” the former McAdams employee Phil Keusch recalled, saying that Arthur would “force” McAdams clients to take out ads in the paper. The whole purpose was to reach physicians and to influence them (“educate” them, Arthur would insist), so the Medical Tribune was subsidized by pharma ads and distributed for free. It soon reached millions of doctors in the United States and (in foreign editions) around the world. One of the biggest advertisers in the Medical Tribune was Roche, and for decades virtually every issue featured elaborate multipage spreads for both Librium and Valium.