When the call came, my brother was at work in the open office in Cambridge, Mass., he shares with seven colleagues who, like him, help run clinical trials for a drug developer. The phone number came up blocked, so he knew it must be the doctor. He stood up, unsteady on his feet. Was he a little nauseous? Or was that just adrenaline? He ducked into the hallway in search of quiet. My brother Evan, 35, is a stocky guy of medium height with a trimmed, fuzzy blond beard and two gem studs in each earlobe. He usually wears a Red Sox hat, and when he’s nervous, he’ll remove it and obsessively bend the rim. But on that September afternoon, both of his hands were clutching his phone, the...
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