In her unpublished history of tamoxifen, Dora Richardson wrote of the team's excitement as the first trial results arrived. She described the news of the birth of a child to a woman who had been infertile for 12 years and had failed to respond to treatment with clomiphene as a “boost to morale
30.” She also described how the team were encouraged by the results of the breast cancer trial, even though these results were not received with universal enthusiasm at ICI: Walpole and his colleagues were told that they were supposed to be looking for a contraceptive pill, not an anti-cancer agent! At a Development meeting on 28th August 1970, sales estimates and quantities of bulk drug were set at 2 kg for initial stocks. Richardson concluded from these figures that the Development Department obviously envisaged treating only “dead people,” an indication of the hopelessness of the condition as it was viewed at that time (as well as lack of faith or ignorance on the part of the Development team)
31.