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

Surprisingly, the storm did not arrive in the United States. The coastline of New Jersey remained calm, but thousands of kilometers away, the dominoes had already begun to fall.

Early spring of 91, Buenos Aires, Argentina. A slum.

Maria knelt on the ground, holding her nine-year-old son Diego in her arms.

Diego is a hemophiliac. Just three months ago, Maria spent all the family's savings and even sold their only dairy cow to buy three bottles of a "miracle drug" from the United States—Factor VIII—on the black market. The drug dealer swore that it was the latest product from Water Pharmaceuticals, more expensive than gold, and would allow her son to run like a normal person.

Now, Diego has indeed stopped bleeding.

His entire body was covered in purplish-red Kaposi's sarcomas, and his breathing sounded like a broken bellows. His immune system had completely collapsed, and a common cold had turned into deadly pneumonia.

"Doctor, why?" Maria clutched the doctor's white coat. "We used the best medicine... American medicine!"

The doctor wearily took off his glasses and rubbed his temples. His desk was piled high with similar medical records—all of them children with hemophilia who had developed AIDS symptoms after using imported treatments.

"It has nothing to do with the medicine...maybe it's just bad luck," the doctor said softly, avoiding Maria's gaze. He couldn't, and dared not, tell the truth. Five days earlier, several American lawyers in suits had visited the hospital, donating a brand-new CT scanner and hinting that more donations would follow if the hospital "remained professional" on this matter.

Maria's cries, piercing and desperate, pierced through the clinic walls and dissipated in the sweltering afternoon heat of Buenos Aires.

But this crying was never isolated!

On the same day, in neon lights, in Tokyo.

Office of the Director of the Hematology Department, Imperial University Hospital.

Professor Yamada's hands trembled slightly as he looked at the slide under the microscope. The blood sample on the slide came from the grandson of a member of parliament, who was also a hemophiliac.

"Is it confirmed?"

"It's confirmed, Professor." The assistant was pale. "HIV positive. And...we compared the viral strain's gene sequence and found it to be completely different from the strains circulating locally."

Professor Yamada's voice suddenly rose eight octaves: "You mean, this is from outside?"

"Yes. Its genetic characteristics are highly homologous to several subtypes that broke out on the US West Coast last year." The assistant swallowed hard. "Professor, should we seal up the batch of clotting factors imported from the US by 'Green Cross' company that we have in our hospital's inventory?"

"Baka!" Professor Yamada roared, slapping him on the shoulder. "Do you know who approved that import? The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare! If you say that batch of medicine is poisonous now, do you want the entire cabinet to resign?"

"But..."

"No buts!" Professor Yamada took a deep breath, his voice turning cold and hard. "This is just an isolated case. That child... may have had an unsavory private life. Yes, that's it. Change the report; the cause of death is heart failure. Understand?!"

But not everyone chose to remain silent.

The following month, Paris, France.

The French newspaper Le Monde published a shocking investigative report on its front page: "Contaminated Blood: A National Scandal."

The article details how the French National Blood Transfusion Center, knowing that blood products might be contaminated, deliberately delayed the introduction of American heat inactivation technology in order to protect the interests of domestic pharmaceutical companies, resulting in more than 1200 hemophilia patients being infected with HIV.

This report sparked a global media frenzy.

Although the reports primarily targeted French institutions, the underlying message was quite clear. The media quickly realized that this wasn't just a French problem. Global infection data was rising exponentially, and all clues pointed to several major blood product exporting countries—the United States being a prominent example.

...

Water Pharmaceuticals headquarters, New Jersey, USA.

Inside the conference room, the blinds were drawn tightly shut. This was a high-level crisis communication meeting.

"The situation in France is very bad." The PR director wiped the sweat from his brow. "Dr. Gareta has been prosecuted. The media is like mad dogs, attacking everywhere, digging deep into the source of the raw blood plasma."

"What about over in Japan?" Victor asked.

"The neon lights are still being suppressed, but the truth can't be hidden forever. Officials from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare have contacted us privately, requesting that we provide security documentation."

"Argentina, Brazil, Hong Kong..." Saul Goodman flipped through the briefing in his hand. "This week alone, we've received lawyer's letters from twelve countries and regions. Boss, this is global litigation. If we don't handle this well, the consequences are unimaginable!"

In the conference room, everyone looked at Victor, awaiting the decision of the leader.

Victor stood up, had his assistant bring over a whiteboard, picked up a pen, and wrote three words:

Deny.

Delay.

Deflect (transfer).

"Gentlemen, don't panic."

"We didn't sell poison. We sold hope. As for why hope turned into despair, that's not our fault."

He pointed to the first word, "Deny".

"First of all, our products are absolutely safe when they leave the factory. We have a full set of testing reports, thanks to Saul's efforts. If the product deteriorates before reaching the patient, there must have been a problem during transportation."

Victor's gaze swept over everyone: "Do you know what a 'cold chain break' is? Clotting factors require strict low-temperature storage. We all know the logistics capabilities of those third-world countries. Maybe their refrigerated truck broke down, or maybe the dockworkers left the medicine boxes in the sun for three days. High temperatures cause protein denaturation and even bacterial growth... Who knows? Anyway, it's not our fault."

"But boss," the head of R&D raised his hand timidly, "high temperatures will only render the drug ineffective, they won't conjure up HIV out of thin air..."

"Shut up," Victor said, still smiling. "This involves a complex scientific issue that the public doesn't understand. We just need to tell them: improper transportation caused the drug to spoil. That's enough."

He pointed to the second word, "Delay".

"Transnational litigation is the longest game in the world. Jurisdiction objections, delays in discovery, visa issues for witnesses... Saul, you have countless ways to make these cases drag on for ten years, don't you?"

"Twenty years," Saul added confidently. "I can keep them arguing about procedural issues until the next century. By the time the verdict comes out, the plaintiffs will probably all be dead—after all, they're patients and won't live much longer."

A low, guttural laugh echoed in the conference room. It was cruel, but it was the truth.

"Finally, Deflect," Victor put down his pen, "if the pressure becomes unbearable, throw out a few scapegoats. Like the local distributors, or some middleman who embezzled cold chain maintenance fees. Muddy the waters. Make the victims hate their own people, not us."

"But there's the issue of that 'virus pool'..." The public relations director was still somewhat worried, "If someone really investigates the source of our blood plasma..."

"Then let them investigate."

"The Arkansas prison has closed the plasma center. All records have been processed. The current Vought Pharmaceuticals is a conscientious company that embraces 'heat inactivation technology.' What happened in the past? That was 'the limitations of technology in the old era,' a tragedy for all humanity, not the crime of any one company."

He looked around.

"Gentlemen, remember this: we are not committing a crime; we are managing risk. There is only one task now: use this chaotic time to complete the asset restructuring. Transfer profits to offshore trusts, and leave the debt and risk in shell companies. When the storm passes, Water Pharmaceuticals will still stand strong!"

...

Baltimore, Maryland.

In the dead of night, a light still shines in a secluded laboratory at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Mude, wearing a dusty trench coat and with bloodshot eyes, stared intently at a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) instrument in front of him.

He had just returned to the United States from Hong Kong and came here without stopping.

When he arrived in Hong Kong and went to Queen Mary Hospital, he found several "tourists" in suits inquiring about Dr. Leung's whereabouts. The remaining batch of clotting factors in the pharmacy had also been sealed and taken away under the guise of "internal audit." Water Pharmaceuticals' reach was faster than he had imagined; they were erasing their traces globally.

Fortunately, Dr. Liang was more perceptive than anyone else.

After sending out four whistleblower letters, which received no response from the FDA, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the FBI, the expert sensed danger. He realized this was no longer a medical malpractice case, but a massive black hole.

A week ago, he took leave under some pretext, and disappeared without a trace, taking with him the last few bottles of unrecovered clotting factor medication and several vials of blood samples from the victimized children.

After much difficulty, Mulder found him before Walter's assassins could reach him.

"Take these and go." Dr. Liang handed a styrofoam box filled with dry ice to Mude, her eyes resolute. "If we need to go to court, I will testify. I don't care who the other side is; I just want justice for those children."

Carrying this weighty promise and evidence, Mudd, like a smuggler, detoured through Vancouver and finally brought these items back to the United States.

Right now, this evidence is laid out on the lab table.

"Are you sure you can extract it?" Mudd asked.

Standing opposite him was Dr. Liu, a Chinese-American virologist wearing thick-rimmed glasses. He was Mudd's informant during his time at the FBI, a tech geek with an almost obsessive passion for viruses.

"It's a bit difficult, but theoretically feasible," Dr. Liu explained while adjusting the instrument's parameters. "The clotting factor is a freeze-dried powder, and the virus is in a dormant state inside it. But the power of PCR technology lies in the fact that as long as even a tiny bit of the virus's genetic material (RNA) remains, we can amplify it."

Dr. Liu pointed to the two sets of samples on the table.

The row on the left shows the dissolved "Factor VIII" solution produced by Wote Pharmaceuticals, with the batch number clearly visible on the bottle.

The row on the right contains blood samples provided by Dr. Leung from Hong Kong children who died from AIDS complications.

"This is called molecular tracing." Dr. Liu picked up a pipette and carefully dripped the reagent into the sample. "If the viral gene sequence we can extract from the vial is completely consistent with the viral gene sequence in the child's blood, then we can prove the causal relationship."

"It wasn't a coincidence, it wasn't a transfusion infection, it was because the medicine itself was toxic," Mud added.

"Exactly."

"Buzzing!"

The centrifuge began to spin at high speed, emitting a heart-pounding roar.

Mudd's heart pounded with the roar of the machines. He knew this was his only trump card.

Victor Walter can destroy documents, bribe witnesses, and even cause car crashes. But he cannot destroy the virus's own genes. That is the mark God etched into sin, biological evidence that cannot be erased by PR statements.

Half an hour later.

Dr. Liu took a gel plate from the electrophoresis apparatus and observed it under a UV lamp.

A pale blue fluorescent light illuminated their tense faces. Several bright orange bands were clearly visible on the gel plate.

Mude held his breath, his hands unconsciously gripping the corner of the table.

Dr. Liu pushed up his glasses, gasped, and his face appeared deathly pale in the dim blue light.

"Oh my god..."

"How is it?" Mud asked anxiously.

Dr. Liu turned his head, his eyes filled with shock and fear: "Fox, look here. This one is the virus from the drug, this one is from the patient's blood... They completely overlap. This isn't just homology, it's practically cloning."

He pointed to the electrophoresis bands of the two sets of samples, his fingers trembling uncontrollably.

"This batch of drugs...this batch of drugs is practically concentrated viral fluid. The viral load here is alarmingly high, and they all have completely identical genetic fingerprints. This means that every drop of this drug injected into these children's bodies is a deadly toxin."

This is the "Spear of Longinus" that pierced Victor's heart!

"Can you provide a formal report?" Mudd asked.

"Yes, this is irrefutable evidence in court." Dr. Liu swallowed hard. "But if this gets out, it will cause an earthquake. This isn't just a medical scandal; it's premeditated murder. Fox, you're fighting a behemoth."

"This is what I wanted." Mudd took a cigarette out of his pocket, but then, remembering that this was a laboratory, he put it back. He looked out at the pitch-black night, his eyes shining brighter than ever before.

"They thought that selling the drugs in Hong Kong, thousands of miles away, would cover up the truth."

Mudd picked up the gel plate as if it were a holy sword.

But blood speaks volumes.

He turned and walked towards the door, his steps firm.

"Liu, write the report in more detail. I need to take it to see someone."

"Who?"

“Someone who can take this fire to the highest level.” Mulder stopped. “My former partner, Dana Sbudder. She’s now a prosecutor in the Department of Justice.”