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

St. Mary's Hospital, Charleston, West Virginia.

"Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Cardiac arrest!"

Several medical staff pushed a mobile hospital bed in. The screeching sound of the wheelchair scraping the floor echoed down the corridor. Lying on the bed was a sixteen-year-old white boy, his face a strange bluish-purple, his limbs convulsing violently as if electrocuted.

"Heart rate 180! Blood pressure 60/40! He's in ventricular fibrillation!" the nurse shouted in alarm.

The emergency room doctor forcibly pried open the boy's eyelids; his pupils shrank to pinpoints, but his eyeballs were moving wildly inside his eye sockets! This was an extremely contradictory physiological sign.

"Pupillary constriction is an opioid overdose... but nystagmus and tachycardia are stimulant poisoning..." The doctor was sweating profusely. "What exactly did this child take?"

FBI Agent Miller, standing in the corner, stared intently at the two orange pill bottles that had rolled out of the boy's backpack. (The backpack zipper wasn't closed properly.)

One of them reads "OxyContin".

One of them says "Focusin".

"It's a speedball..." Miller muttered to himself, a chill creeping up his spine to the back of his head.

Even on the battlefield of the Vietnam War, he had never seen such a crazy combination of enhancements.

"What is a speed ball?" the young intern nurse asked as she prepared to intubate.

"Death's cocktail." The doctor gritted his teeth, the defibrillator in his hand buzzing. "Left hand accelerator, right hand brake. Concerta (a stimulant) stimulates dopamine release, making him feel no drowsiness; OxyContin (an opioid) suppresses the central nervous system, making him feel no pain. The stimulant masks the lethal dose of opioids. This kid may have swallowed a whole bottle of painkillers, yet he still feels incredibly energetic."

The doctor suddenly ripped open the boy's shirt, revealing a chest that heaved violently, as if a strange creature was hiding inside, eager to break free.

"This is the price! His sympathetic nervous system was racing, while his parasympathetic nervous system was slamming on the brakes. His heart was being torn apart by two opposing forces!"

"Defibrillator! Charge to 200 joules!" the doctor yelled. "Remove it! Administer the shock!"

boom!

The boy's body sprang up suddenly, then fell heavily back down.

The lines on the electrocardiogram monitor were still a jumbled mess.

"Again! 300 joules!"

boom!

This time, pink foam spilled from the corner of the boy's mouth, a sign of pulmonary edema.

"Damn it... respiratory depression is causing hypoxia, and tachycardia is causing a surge in oxygen consumption." The doctor looked at the instruments in despair. "His bodily systems have completely collapsed."

*drop------*

A long whistle rang out. The chaotic curves finally transformed into a lifeless straight line.

A brief silence fell over the emergency room, with only the ventilator bellows rising and falling in vain.

Miller stepped forward and picked up the two medicine bottles.

All are legal prescription drugs. All have the signature of a qualified doctor.

He looked at the dead boy. Sixteen years old, the age when life is just beginning. But in the reports of Water Pharmaceuticals, he was just a data point discarded due to "drug interactions".

...

Three days later. Washington, D.C., FDA headquarters building.

Miller slammed a thick file onto David Rossi's desk.

“This is murder, David.” Miller’s eyes were bloodshot; he hadn’t slept for 48 hours. “This isn’t an isolated case. Concentrate has only been listed for less than six months, and in the past three months, I’ve found seventeen similar deaths in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.”

David Rossi, the deputy director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation, glanced at the document and then looked away.

"Murder? That's a very serious legal charge, Agent," Rossi said with a smile. "As far as I know, these drugs have all undergone rigorous FDA approval."

"They were approved separately!" Miller roared. "But nobody tested what happens when they're mixed together! Vought is giving kids Concerta and adults OxyContin. He's creating the perfect addict!"

Miller opened the file and pointed to a chart.

"Look at this trend. These kids take Concerta to school during the day, and at night, to combat the insomnia caused by the stimulants, they have to secretly take OxyContin from their parents to help them sleep. It's a perfect business loop!"

"Furthermore, I reviewed the early clinical trial records for Concerta—although most of them were sealed, I found some corroborating evidence. That kind of stimulant permanently alters the brain's reward circuitry. This isn't just about the current mixed poisoning; it's about cultivating future opioid receptors! Once they take Concerta, they'll be addicted to OxyContin for life!"

He picked up the document, flipped through a few pages casually, and tossed it back onto the table like trash.

"Correlation is not the same as causation, Miller."

Rossi's voice was frighteningly calm.

"Most of these children come from low-income families and already face enormous social pressure and drug temptations. How can you prove that tartar caused their later opioid addiction? Perhaps it's just that they were genetically predisposed to addiction? This is 'individual difference'."

"Individual differences?" Miller stared at him incredulously. "Seventeen corpses, and you call that individual differences?"

“Statistically, the sample size is insufficient.” Rossi stood up. “If you can provide data from a double-blind trial to prove a causal relationship, I will accept it. But right now? This is just a conspiracy theory.”

"Screw your double-blind experiment!" Miller rushed forward and grabbed Rossi by the collar. "Do you know how many years this will take! And how many people will die during that time?"

Two security guards rushed in immediately and restrained Miller.

Rossi patted his wrinkled collar, his eyes icy. "Please ask Agent Miller to leave. Don't let him into the building again without an appointment."

...

Miller was thrown out of the FDA.

The cold autumn wind swirled fallen leaves, stinging his face like a knife.

He tried to contact a reporter from The Washington Post, but the reporter immediately hung up when he heard it was negative news about Water Pharmaceuticals.

"Sorry, Miller. They just bought our front-page headline for next quarter."

this is the truth.

Victor Corleone not only controlled the drugs, he also controlled the discourse.

Miller sat in the Ford sedan, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.

He wanted to cry, but couldn't. He wanted to kill someone, but didn't know who to kill.

Faced with this enormous institutional machine, he, an FBI agent, was as insignificant as an ant.

Knock knock knock.

Someone knocked on his car window.

Miller alertly reached for his sidearm at his waist and turned his head.

A man in a trench coat stood outside the car window, wearing black-rimmed glasses, his eyes revealing a neurotic fanaticism.

"If you want to solve your problems within the system, you'd better drive home now, take a hot shower, and forget about all of this."

The man spoke through the glass.

Miller paused for a moment, then rolled down the car window, his tense nerves relaxing slightly.

"Mold? When did you get back?"

"Just got off the plane."

Mudra opened the car door and stepped into the passenger seat, bringing with him the chill of late autumn. He looked more haggard than in Kentucky, with sunken eyes, but his eyes were frighteningly bright.

"I didn't find the 'monster' in the Kentucky coal mines." Mulder pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Miller. "But I found something else. A name."

"Who?"

“Someone who used to work in the R&D department at Waterpharm. She suddenly left two months before Concerta was launched, and then vanished like a ghost.” Mulder’s voice was low. “She saw the data that was wiped clean, Miller. She knew the true nature of Concerta.”

Miller looked at the note, which contained only a vague address and a secret code.

"Are you sure she'll talk?" Miller asked skeptically. "Victor's men are causing trouble everywhere."

"She had no other choice." Mulder looked out the window at the brightly lit FDA building, a sarcastic smile playing on his lips. "Conscience can be more tormenting than a killer's. She contacted me, saying she wanted to atone for her sins."

Miller paused for a moment, then started the car.

Where is she?

"A place only rats and ghosts go." Mudd fastened his seatbelt. "Let's go, partner. Since the front door is blocked, we'll go through the back. Let's meet our 'Deep Throat'."