Professor Anthony Stephen is 55 years old and is a little old white man.
Don't be fooled by his ordinary appearance, but he is the top infectious disease expert in the United States
His titles include professor at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Institute for Epidemiology, member of the U.S. Academy of Sciences, vice president of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD), etc.
A top expert of his level will naturally be sought after by pharmaceutical companies, and he also needs to transform his research results into clinical drugs and experience.
Therefore, in the past few years, one of the most important research topics led by Professor Anthony is the triple drug therapy of "anezolid + streptomycin + glucagon" for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis is the number one infectious disease threatening humans, killing millions of people worldwide every year.
Almost all capable countries are researching tuberculosis, and everyone is racing against time to see who can be the first to conquer tuberculosis.
It might be imagined that the first doctor to conquer tuberculosis would personally receive unparalleled honor and be recorded in the annals of medical history.
The first pharmaceutical company to produce tuberculosis drugs will also gain access to a huge market worth tens of billions of dollars a year.
At the same time, the first hospital, organization, research institute, or even country to announce the conquest of tuberculosis will gain huge international reputation.
High risk and high profit. Although tuberculosis is a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of mankind, it is also a tempting apple hanging on the tree. It depends on who can pick it first.
Obviously, as the most famous infectious disease expert in the United States, Professor Anthony really wants to reap this fruit.
To this end, with the sponsorship of AbbVie Pharmaceuticals, he spent hundreds of millions of US dollars and spent a full five years to develop a triple therapy for tuberculosis in India, using two new anti-tuberculosis drugs, anezolizumab and ganylosporin.
Today was the research team's first secret summary meeting, but the result made him very disappointed.
Professor Anthony let go of his hair, snatched the report data from his assistant, and asked unwillingly:
"Why is the cure rate only 32%? Could it be due to racial differences?"
Assistant Blake shrugged:
"I'm sorry, Professor. Whether it's human experiments in our country or in India, the data doesn't differ much. The difference is that we in the United States only conducted 1,000 drug trials, while India conducted 9,000."
Before a drug can be marketed, its safety and efficacy in humans must be evaluated in advance. Depending on the purpose and scope of the trial, a Phase IV clinical trial is required.
For example, Phase I clinical trials first administer the drug to a small number of subjects, generally only 10-30 people, in order to preliminarily evaluate the safety and tolerability of the drug.
This first group of swab subjects is the most dangerous because the new drug is used on humans for the first time. Humans are completely different from laboratory mice, and the uncontrollable risks are very large, with very high mortality and disability rates.
Therefore, the subjects can receive a large sum of money in advance, and generally, no one will participate in such a life-threatening experiment unless they are at the end of their rope.
Of course, given the nature of pharmaceutical companies in Europe and the United States, if you don't want to spend money, you can just find some homeless people on the street, lonely elderly people and orphans in welfare homes, illegal immigrants, etc.
What if, even more cruelly, the experiments require healthy adults?
Then go to war-torn areas, or South American or Eastern European countries, capture a group of healthy young people, prepare a medical ship on the high seas, and conduct experiments. If they die, just throw them into the sea to feed the sharks.
If the subjects did not die, regardless of the final results of the experiment, they would be killed to silence them, and their organs would be removed, and their bodies would be fed to sharks.
Of course, you will never see this in the media, as people still have to maintain their hypocrisy and good image.
If the Phase I clinical trial is passed, then Phase II will be carried out. At this time, the number of swab subjects will need to be expanded, generally around 100 to 300 people.
The purpose is to preliminarily evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the drug. This stage also provides a basis for the design and dosage regimen of subsequent Phase III clinical trials.
The first two phases have been passed, and the next step is Phase III clinical trial.
In this phase, the new drug or therapy is used in a larger group of people, such as 1,000-10,000 people, to further evaluate its effectiveness and safety.
This stage is an important basis for drug registration applications, so Phase III clinical trials are very important, and most new drugs fail at this stage.
For example, the reason why traditional Chinese medicines have not been able to enter the U.S. market is that they cannot pass the FDA review, and most of them dare not conduct clinical trials.
The only brave one was the "Compound Danshen Drops", which passed Phase I and Phase II clinical trials, but ultimately failed to pass Phase III and collapsed halfway, and all previous investments were wasted.
There was also the mask disease period, when some indescribable vaccine was involved. At that time, no vaccine from any pharmaceutical company in the world had passed Phase III clinical trials.
For example, Pfizer in the United States set up a special vaccine branch and launched the product directly on the market without conducting any Phase III clinical trials. Then, after making enough money and fearing being held accountable, it directly cancelled the branch. Its methods were extremely despicable.
Because Phase III clinical trials involve many subjects, theoretically a large sum of money needs to be paid to the first subject, so the investment is huge.
But you need five thousand or ten thousand living people for the experiment. It is obviously impossible to capture homeless people or prisoners of war because the risk of exposure is too great. Once exposed, there will be no recovery.
Therefore, each pharmaceutical company or experimental team will think of another way, which is to find subjects in the third world.
For example, in India, Africa and other countries, human lives are not valuable here anyway.
More sophisticated pharmaceutical companies will also pay. For example, in the United States, a subject will be given $100,000, but in poor countries, only $1,000 may be enough, which saves a lot of money.
Of course, there are also unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies or poor domestic traitors who have embezzled this money. In this case, they will use deception or even coercion to make the people unknowingly become guinea pigs.
For example, the Black Gold Rice incident that was exposed in India that year was that a genetically modified company provided experimental food and then used elementary school students as guinea pigs.
Are there many such cases? Actually, there are many. It is impossible for a traitor to enter the campus. The hearts of some people in India are extremely evil.
Another thing is that in hospitals in these third world countries, doctors will tell patients that your disease is incurable. I have a special medicine in my hand. Would you like to try it?
Of course, patients are willing to give it a try as if it were a life-saving straw.
Okay, you should give it a try. One course of treatment will cost tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, but if you are not dead after taking N courses of treatment, you can take the medicine for free in the future.
However, while you are taking the medicine, you must regularly check this indicator and do that test, and then give all the results to the doctor in exchange for subsequent medication.
We won’t tell you all of them, but when encountering this kind of thing, patients should always be careful, because you may have been sold and become a guinea pig, while still counting money for others.
The Harvard Medical School's triple therapy tuberculosis experimental team is also conducting a Phase III clinical trial in India, testing the drug on 9,000 Indian tuberculosis patients.
Unfortunately, the results were not ideal. The cure rate of 32% meant that the "anezolid + streptomycin + glycidylcin triple therapy" had failed.
Although experimental data can be falsified, the 14% serious adverse reactions and 4.4% mortality rate cannot be ignored in any way.
Asan’s life is worthless, once he dies, he dies.
However, the lives of ordinary people in European and American countries are very precious. After all, the lawyers here are more difficult to deal with. If you lose the lawsuit, the compensation is an astonishing amount of tens of millions.
(In 2004, a Los Angeles court ordered Philip Morris, the owner of the famous Marlboro cigarette brand, to pay a smoker $28 billion in damages for fraud and liability. The reason was that the old lady had lung cancer due to smoking.)
Just as everyone in the institute was reviewing why the experiment failed, a dusty middle-aged white man walked in from outside.
"Hey guys, I'm not late am I?"
The visitor was Theodore, a partner of Anthony's tuberculosis research group and a professor at Harvard Medical School.
Professor Anthony took a look and complained as if he had found someone to talk to:
"Theodore, there's actually no need for you to rush back in time. I have bad news for you. Our project has failed. Fuck, we have to start all over again. How many five years do we have left?"
Professor Theodore had just returned from a World Organization meeting in Geneva and came to the institute as soon as he got off the plane.
"Anthony, are you still unwilling to accept reality? I have long known that our experiment in India had failed. When I was in charge of the project at Calicut Hospital in India, I personally rescued no less than 100 test subjects and dissected 50 of their bodies.
Such high adverse reaction and mortality rates mean our experiment is doomed. I'm prepared for this, but so what? After paying India's expenses, we still have $30 million left, enough to make a fortune.
According to international unwritten rules, sponsors will generally give a medical research team a "sponsorship" for research on a certain topic.
After completing the project, the scientific research team can put the remaining funds into their own pockets. How much they can leave depends on whether your experiment goes smoothly and whether you save scientific research funds.
AbbVie Pharmaceuticals has sponsored $100 million in funding to Harvard Medical School to investigate the effectiveness and safety of two new drugs, anezolizumab and gammycin, in treating tuberculosis.
Now the project has failed, but 30 million US dollars have already entered the pockets of the scientific research team members led by Professor Anthony and Professor Osido through various false accounting methods.
This is the same principle as director Peter Chan falsifying accounts and charging $6,000 for a straw hat, deceiving investors.
So for Osido, the best thing is that the project is successful, and he can gain both fame and fortune.
If the project fails, it doesn't matter much. 30 million US dollars will be distributed to each team, and he, as the person in charge, can at least get 10 million. Just taking a "profit" is not bad. What else does he want?
Professor Anthony was obviously not satisfied with this answer:
"Everyone likes money, but we are infectious disease experts. I really want us to be the first team in the world to conquer tuberculosis. This way, we will not only gain worldwide fame, but also receive unlimited research funding in the future. This is the true success in life."
Professor Theodore sat down, placed a briefcase on the table and patted it twice:
"Anthony, I have to tell you another piece of very sad news. Your dream of being the first to conquer tuberculosis has been shattered."
Professor Anthony sat up straight at once:
"What? Someone has conquered tuberculosis? Damn it, which team? Cambridge Medical School? Or the Sorbonne University Medical School? Or Silver's team at Columbia University? I knew they'd never give up on surpassing us."
Professor Theodore shrugged:
"You're all wrong. This was accomplished by a medical team you could never have guessed. Their national news agency has already publicly announced that they were the first in the world to conquer tuberculosis."
Professor Anthony was stunned after hearing this, and shouted a little unwillingly:
"How is it possible? How come I haven't seen this sensational news? There's no news at all. I'm the Vice President of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. There's no reason why I wouldn't know about it.
Theodore, which country, medical school, or pharmaceutical company is this? Could this be fake news? Many people often lie and conceal information to defraud research funding. This is definitely an academic scandal.
Professor Theodore chuckled, opened his briefcase, and took out some documents.
"I have a few papers here. Please take a look at them first and use your wisdom and sharp eyes to evaluate whether these papers are true or false. Finally, I will announce which country has conquered tuberculosis."
Professor Anthony took one of the documents, and then other team members in the office also picked up the documents and started reading.
Because this was a "closed-book exam", Professor Anthony studied it very carefully. The title of the paper in his hand was "Pharmacological Actions and Dosage Schemes of Tuberculosis Drugs".
"Fuck! There's a new tuberculosis drug out! I didn't even know it was called Epyridamole tablets? What the hell is that name?"
Professor Theodore knocked on the table and said, "Read on, read on quickly."
"It binds firmly to the β-oxygen unit of the DNA-dependent RNA polysaccharide enzyme, inhibiting bacterial RNA synthesis and preventing RNA transcription..."
"Inhibits the synthesis of mycolic acid in sensitive bacteria, causing cell wall rupture..."
"It penetrates into phagocytes, enters the body of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and deamidates it and converts it into pyrazinoic acid..."
The more Professor Anthony read the paper, the more questions popped up in his mind:
"That doesn't make sense. How can one pill have so many pharmacological effects? Either this paper is fake, or this drug isn't a single medicine, but a combination of multiple drugs."
At this time, Assistant Blake also screamed:
"Oh my god! This paper says this medical research team has treated 5,000 patients, with a 92% cure rate, a 6% improvement rate, and only a 2% mortality rate. How did they achieve this?"
Professor Anthony was startled, put down the paper in his hand, and snatched the information from Blake.
After a long while, the old professor began to speak sweetly again:
"Fuck, forget about the amazing cure rate. Just look at the mortality rate. Only two deaths were due to adverse drug reactions. The rest were almost all due to underlying diseases. There was even one case of drowning while fishing."
Carol, another female assistant, also found it difficult to calm down at this time:
"Professor, please take a look at this paper. It seems this medical team has done very in-depth research on tuberculosis. They even proposed dividing tuberculosis into five types based on the location of the lesion and the severity of the disease.
They are primary pulmonary tuberculosis, secondary pulmonary tuberculosis, cavitary tuberculosis, miliary tuberculosis, and tuberculous pleurisy.
They also gave a detailed theoretical explanation for the classification. If this paper is true, then their clinical and theoretical research is absolutely at the forefront of the world. We will have no food to eat in the future."
Another assistant also screamed:
"My paper is titled 'Clinical Research on Refractory Pulmonary Tuberculosis.' We're having trouble conquering even basic tuberculosis, and yet they're already researching refractory, stubborn, and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis?"
Professor Anthony read one paper after another, and suddenly he leaned back on his chair and threw the materials in his hand into the air.
"I don't believe it. I absolutely don't believe it. If there really was a medical team that went so far, how could I not know anything about it?"
Suddenly, Professor Anthony jumped up like an enraged lion, grabbed Professor Theodore's neck, shook him viciously, and asked fiercely:
"Who is it? Tell me which medical team it is? Tell me this is not true!!!"
"Let go, you lunatic," Professor Theodore quickly pushed Professor Anthony aside, straightened his collar, and took out a newspaper from his briefcase.
Everyone in the office gathered around and looked at the newspaper in surprise.
"What kind of newspaper is this? It looks like Japanese?"
"Stupid, this is Chinese."
"What does a Chinese newspaper have to do with a tuberculosis paper? Don't tell me that the Chinese were the first to conquer tuberculosis."
Professor Theodore snapped his fingers:
"Ladies and gentlemen, you guessed it right. The content published in this newspaper is the good news about China's victory over tuberculosis. You see, the headline on the front page is the good news.
Did you see the photo on the front page? The doctors in the photo are part of the research team that conquered tuberculosis treatment. They work at the Peking Infectious Disease Hospital, and their leader is the young man in the photo, Lin.
In addition, the second page of the newspaper was filled with interviews with Lin, detailing how Lin led his team to invent the drug and how they developed an effective treatment plan.
Also, look at pages three and four. There are five papers published here. They are the materials I just distributed to you. However, these papers are all in Chinese. I also have a complete English translation."
Anthony's mouth opened wide, not knowing how to describe his feelings, so he asked:
"Theodore, let's not talk about the authenticity of this newspaper and these papers. Where did you get this information?" (End of this chapter)
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