American Medicine God: Starting by Inheriting a Pharmaceutical Company and Selling Medicine

Atlanta, headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The fluorescent lights in the corridor emitted a soft hum. In the office of the Epidemiological Intelligence Service (EIS), young investigator Sarah Martin stared blankly at the map on the wall.

There are a dozen or so red pins stuck in the map. They are distributed in Kokomo, Denver, Miami, Los Angeles... seemingly without any pattern, but they have one thing in common.

"They're all hemophiliacs," Sarah murmured to herself. "And they're all children. Their average age is under 14. No history of drug abuse or intravenous drug use."

She picked up a memo from the table—a record of a call from Dr. Wilson in Cokomo. Although the operator had brushed it off, the call was filed as an "atypical case."

"This can't be a coincidence."

Sarah turned sharply to her supervisor and said, "Sir, this is the twelfth case this month. The only thing these children have in common is that they are all using commercial clotting factor concentrates, especially Factor VIII produced by Water Pharmaceuticals."

The supervisor, an elderly man with gray hair, was reviewing a report on the flu vaccine. Without looking up, he said, "Sarah, you need to understand what this means. If we issue a warning now, declaring blood products unsafe, it will trigger nationwide panic."

"Thousands of hemophiliacs refuse treatment because they are afraid to take the medication. Once internal bleeding occurs, they die. They die from excessive blood loss, not from some virus we don't yet understand."

"But what if there really is a virus in the medicine?" Sarah countered. "We're watching them inject death into our veins. Every injection is like playing Russian roulette, and there are five bullets in the cylinder."

"evidence."

"We need solid evidence. Not correlation analysis, not speculation. We need virus isolation reports. Current ELISA kits are newly available, and their false positive rate is as high as 30%. And you need to know who we're fighting."

He pointed out the window as if an invisible giant stood there.

"The pharmaceutical giants have more lawyers than our scientists. If we dare to issue a warning before the live virus is isolated, they will sue us for 'spreading rumors and disrupting public health.' At that point, the CDC's budget will be cut, and you and I will both be out of a job."

Sarah bit her lip, staring at the bright red markers on the map. Each red dot represented a life withering away.

"So we're just going to watch?"

"We're not just watching," the supervisor sighed. "We're 'closely monitoring.' That's the survival wisdom of bureaucracy, kid."

...

Meanwhile, at the Water Pharmaceutical Research and Development Center.

In the biosafety laboratory on the third basement level, the centrifuges had just stopped running.

Research and development director Eric Schneider, wearing double latex gloves, carefully removed a row of test tubes from the high-speed centrifuge.

The blood plasma in the test tube had an eerie dark red color.

"How's it going?" Saul asked through the walkie-talkie from outside the isolation window.

Eric didn't answer. He placed the test tube into the spectrometer and watched the data curves jump across the screen. A few minutes later, the printer ejected a long sheet of thermal paper.

Eric's face turned deathly pale behind the face mask.

He picked up the report, walked out of the laboratory, went through three tedious disinfection spray procedures, took off his heavy protective suit, and finally arrived at Victor's office on the top floor.

Victor is pruning a valuable orchid.

"The results are in?" He didn't turn around, but instead cut off a withered leaf with the scissors in his hand.

“Yes, sir.” Eric’s voice trembled, and he felt his legs go weak. “We retested lot number 89-10-A in our inventory. It’s the blood plasma from the Arkansas state prison.”

"Get to the point." The scissors made a crisp snap.

"HIV antibody positivity rate...5%."

Victor's hand froze in mid-air. A freshly cut orchid leaf drifted down from the blade of the scissors.

"5%." Victor repeated the number. "That means that one in every twenty donors is a carrier."

"That's not the worst part."

Eric swallowed hard. "Because we used the 'ultra-large capacity mixing tank' process, in order to reduce costs, we mixed this 5% positive plasma with several thousand liters of healthy plasma..."

"It's like a drop of ink in a pot of soup," Eric said despairingly. "Based on viral load models... this entire batch is contaminated. The viral concentration is enough to infect anyone who injects it."

Saul, standing to the side, his mind racing, quickly added, "The remaining inventory of this shipment is worth three hundred million dollars. If we include the already shipped portions, recall costs, destruction costs, public relations expenses, plus potential class-action lawsuit damages... we could go bankrupt."

Eric looked at Victor, a pleading glint in his eyes: "Boss, we have to recall them. This isn't just about money. This is murder. If we don't stop it now, this batch of drugs will infect at least ten thousand hemophiliacs. Many of them are children."

Victor finally turned around.

He put down the scissors, picked up the report on the table, and read it carefully.

"Eric," he began, "has the FDA mandated HIV testing for every batch of products?"

Eric paused for a moment: "Not yet. The test kits are new, the accuracy is controversial, and they're too expensive—it costs $50 to test each sample twice. The FDA is just making a 'recommendation'."

"So, has the FDA mandated that we use heat inactivation technology?"

"No, not really. They're drafting documents, debating what temperature to heat the virus to kill it without destroying the activity of clotting factors. It won't be ready for promulgation for at least another six months."

"So," Victor tossed the report back onto the table, "legally, our product is compliant."

"But morally..."

"Morality is for saints, Eric. We are businessmen."

"If we recall now, it's not just a matter of losing $300 million. Our stock price will crash, Wall Street will abandon us, and short-selling firms will swarm us like vultures. Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson will seize the opportunity to acquire us. Thousands, tens of thousands of employees will lose their jobs, including you and me. Who will pay your mortgage, your daughter's private school tuition?"

He turned around, walked to the fireplace, and lit a cigar.

"Furthermore, how can you prove that these people were infected because of our drug? They might have received blood transfusions, or they might have engaged in promiscuous behavior. These things are impossible to trace. In court, without a chain of evidence, there is no truth."

Victor took a deep drag of his cigarette, then pointed to the report on the table: "Burn this."

"Wh...what?" Eric's eyes widened, thinking he had misheard.

"I said, burn it."

-

I've changed to a simple cover first. Later, I'll do more cover tests, including a street lamp, a meme, a JoJo's Stand, and one more I haven't decided on yet: how about Leonardo DiCaprio, the handsome Italian guy?