David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

paralyzed. When you get a toxic dose,
you end up in coma. Of the first fourteen
children we treated, one or two actually
died. Their brains were totally fried.”
Max Wintrobe thought the humane
approach was not to use any drugs at all.
Freireich and Frei wanted to use four,
all at once. Frei went before the NCI
advisory board to ask for approval. He
got nowhere.
“There was a senior hematologist on
the board by the name of Dr. Carl
Moore, who happened to be a friend of
my father’s from St. Louis,” Frei
remembered years later. “I had always
considered him a friend, too. But my
presentation struck him as being
outrageous. He didn’t deal in pediatric