Eleventh Hour (2008–2009): Season 1, Episode 3 - Agro - full transcript
Genetic Modified (GM) food results in poisoning of several people.
Help, please!
We're in here!
Help, please!
It's my mom, my dad and my brother.
I got the kid.
- Seizing. Diaphoretic
- I don't know what happened.
Are they going to be okay?
What's wrong?
Paralysis. I'll go back for the
traction board.
There's no time. The kid just
stopped breathing.
He's cyanotic, we got to tube him.
- You have to help them, please
- Both breathing.
Come on now, son.
We're losing him.
Dr. Hood.
I'm Wallace Bennett,
Chief of the Major
Investigations Division.
I'm heading the Go Team on this case.
I put in a call to the FBI director
to thank him
for sending you over here on
such short notice.
My people have been over operations,
structures, power plants,
systems and human performance,
but so far, we've got nothing.
We also did a full battery of
chemical testing
for explosive residue.
Results negative across the board.
We keep mining the same data
but there's something
we're missing here and I...
...over and over.
Over and over..
Dr. Hood, we need something...
Dr. Hood?
Dr. Hood?
Did you hear a word I just said?
Ice cream.
Excuse me?
Do you have ice cream?
And a hot plate.
Vanilla.
Dr. Hood,what the hell is
this all about?
The landing gear on this
aircraft is directly adjacent
to the engine, right?
- That's where they tend to put it
- So...
after a long flight,it's going
to get very hot.
So... you bring my entire investigation
to a halt just to tell my people that
engines get hot?
On the night the plane crashed
the temperature
on the ground was minus 20 Celsius.
That is way below freezing.
Thermal shock fracture.
Yup.
We tested the hydraulics
in the landing gear for extremes,
but not for rapid temperature change.
I don't suppose the NTSB could help me
get a new watch?
I'll give you my damn Rolex.
Oh, that won't be necessary.
Dr. Hood's employers at the FBI are
perfectly capable
of reimbursing him
for any expenses and/or...
personal items damaged during
the course of an investigation.
Mr. Bennett,
this is Special Agent Rachel
Young, my, um...
I'm his FBI handler.
And we've got somewhere else to be.
Sir.
A family in San Jose, California
ate breakfast
- approximately 36 hours ago.
- And?
And they've been paralyzed ever since.
EMT has brought them in as
a triple case of spinal trauma,
but we ruled that out right away.
We did a tox screen for
botulism and Lyme disease,
spinal taps for meningitis.
Negative on all counts.
It has to be poisoning of some kind.
Wrinkle is the daughter ate
the same breakfast
as the rest of the family, continues
to be asymptomatic.
Are you Jacob Hood with
the Bureau?
He is. And you are?
I'm Agent Morris, FDA.
This is my colleague Agent
Wilson with the CDC.
We both requested you. Thanks
for coming in so quickly.
Heard about your work on the hantavirus
case last March.
I'd like to hear about your work here
earlier today.
We screened and catalogued
the stomach content on
all 3 victims,
plus the asymptomatic daughter.
No toxins or bacteria known
to lead to paralysis.
The CDC's primary
objective is to keep this thing
from spreading,
while we at the FDA are
mainly concerned
with the safety of the food chain.
But frankly...
We're stumped.
Where's the daughter?
Emily Stanner, 16 years old.
She's in with the police right now.
They think she did this?
Well, they don't know what to think.
But,you know there's a case in
New Jersey a couple of years back...
a teenage kid put antifreeze in
his parents' iced tea.
Turned out he was pissed off
about being grounded.
Listen, Emily, the truth is,
lots of kids get angry
at their parents.
Look... if your folks
are mistreating you or abusing you,
mentally, emotionally...
even physically,
it could count in your favor.
Tell me the truth about
everything you know,
and it could go a long way towards
helping you out in court later.
Excuse me, uh, but we're busy here,
if you don't mind, huh?
I do mind. You shouldn't be in the
same room with this patient,
not without adequate protection.
What do you mean," protection" ?
She's carrying
type 5 C-vector airborne virus.
It's highly contagious, no known cure.
Really, no one mentioned this to you?
It's okay,
as long as you've had no
physical contact,
it should be fine.
Don't go anywhere.
I'm going to look into this.
Don't worry... there's no such thing
as a type 5 c-vector.
I said that to scare
them off so I could talk
to you in private.
My name's Jacob Hood.
I'm kind of the science
guy for the FBI.
My family... are they gonna be okay?
Is the same thing gonna happen to me?
I don't know.
That's what I'm here to find out.
The police, they think that...
I didn't do anything
to my mom, my dad or my little brother.
I know.
You do?
Yeah.
The forensic pathologists
they've been over
your house with a fine-toothed
comb to find
anything that would've caused your
family's paralysis.
So if you're a poisoner, you're
a very good one.
And I've seen your high
school transcripts,
and Chemistry, well, you failed it, twice.
So I don't think you're
too much of a threat.
What I want to know is
is there anything
you can remember that
you did differently
from your family yesterday morning?
Anything at all?
No.
All we did was eat breakfast.
Just breakfast.
We've already got forensics.
Want to tell me again why we're here?
Any idea, Rachel, how many
seemingly innocuous
household ingredients
could actually kill you?
Air freshener?
Smells good.
Key ingredient: formaldehyde.
Could cause headaches,
nausea, nosebleeds,
dizziness, memory loss...
Margarine?
What's poisonous about margarine?
The benzoic acid.
Fatally so, if you're allergic to it.
You know the use of
the term " nontoxic"
is only for advertising.
It has no regulated governmental
definition whatsoever.
Well, nothing in here looks
all that dangerous.
Be that as it may, we've got
a sample size of 4 subjects,
3 who ate breakfast and got sick,
and one who ate the same breakfast
and didn't get sick.
Make that a sample size of 5
Looks like they have a dog.
- Hey, Eddie.
- Hey, Mom.
- Hey, son.
- Brought the mail up.
How about a cold one?
Don't mind if I do.
You gonna stay for supper?
Sounds like a plan.
What's in the mail?
Oh, relax, Mom, it's just bills
and junk.
We got it, Bob.
All right.
"Notification of full payment. "
We did it, babe.
We sure did.
Eddie, we paid off the farm.
We need to celebrate.
- Huh.
- Forget the beers,
we are opening the champagne tonight.
That's an idea.
You know, about a year ago, we were
a hair's breath away from
losing the place.
Now...
it's ours, free and clear.
And we have you to thank for that.
Let's go get some champagne. Come on.
One of the nice things about dogs is
that they're omnivores,
just like us humans.
So, Trixie
probably just had a little
bit of everything
the Stanners did.
Poor Trixie.
So why aren't the Stanners dead?
Because dogs metabolize toxins much
faster than we do.
Look.
Single mass...
going down the digestive
tract into the stomach.
Or up out of the stomach,
as the case may be.
What is it?
Fungus.
Help! Please!
I need help!
Emily, your family's bodies have been,
uh, colonized
by a fungal organisms
kind of like a mold,
that's growing inside of them.
And normally the doctors
would give them
an anti-fungal medication
that kill the fungus and allow
them to get better.
But you tried that, and it didn't work?
Well...
Mmm.
In this case, um,
even though we have killed
the-the fungus,
the paralysis is still progressing.
So we are trying to find out
why that is.
I don't have any other family.
You have to fix them.
This is our fungus.
Take a look.
It's...
beautiful.
Botrytis cinerea.
It's everywhere.
There're probably spores of it
in the air we're breathing right now.
Don't worry... it only, uh,
grows on plants.
That's why it's on the food
inside the dog,
but not actually on the dog's
tissues itself.
So Trixie ate whatever the family ate.
Mm-hmm.
And we know the family ate
plant material...
fruits and vegetables...
but we don't know which fruits
and/or vegetables were contaminated.
There's our conundrum.
In its natural state,
botrytis cinerea is completely
harmless to humans.
From the looks of that specimen,
I'd say it's been genetically modified.
And it's not harmless anymore.
Care to explain why we're
hunting a deadly fungus
in a wine shop?
Because some winemakers use
genetically modified fungus
in their product.
And Coppertina Vineyards
is one of the world's leading makers
of botrytized wine.
Once upon a time
in Medieval France, there was a nobleman
who liked to oversee every aspect
of the winemaking in his domain.
Control freak.
Exactly.
Until one summer, he fell in love.
So he took the fair maiden
to his bedchamber.
They pretty much stayed there.
They couldn't wait any longer
so in desperation
they picked the molding
grapes off the vine
and made wine out of what was left.
And?
And it was delicious.
So they named this fungus,
our little fella,
botrytis cinerea...
or "noble rot", after the nobleman
whose great love had
unwittingly created
such ambrosia.
But botrytized wine making
is a gamble with nature.
One too many days of rain or sun,
and the whole harvest is worthless.
So why would the winemakers
take that risk?
Why?
Because this bottle
of Coppertina's botrytized vintage
is $1,500.
The only problem with
your botrytis theory
is that the Stanners didn't
have wine for breakfast.
So how did they get sick?
A fungus's spores
kind of work like, um...
...this little fella.
Any organism that reproduces
by spreading itself over the
largest area possible,
you'd be a fool to think that just
'cause you put it on one crop
that's where it's gonna stay.
So the fungus could be...
anywhere.
What's wrong with his eyes, Hood?
Keratomycosis.
It's an infection of the cornea
caused by overexposure to a...
mycological organism.
English, please.
There is a fungus among us.
And I bet it's on these grapes.
Hey!
Todo el mundo a trabajar.
Can't you read?
This area's for employees only.
We... We just wanted to take a picture.
It's our first vacation.
Oh, will you take it for us?
No? Okay.
You want to see the fields,
you can pay for the tour
in the tasting room.
- Intending?
- Of course.
- Yes.
- Thank you.
Come on, honey.
Well, good news, bad news.
Botrytis cinerea on the grapes
has been genetically altered,
but it's not the same strain
that paralyzed the Stanner family...
the nucleotide sequence is wrong.
Which means we're back to square one.
You don't seem particularly
bothered by this.
Well, just because the fungus
trail's gone cold
doesn't mean the money
trail isn't still hot.
I called in a favor at Quantico.
We'll have Coppertina's
full financial
no later than tomorrow.
Don't you need a subpoena
to look into a privately held
company's financial records?
Gotta love the Patriot Act.
Damn it, Matty.
Hey, Liz, am I in time for dessert?
Oh, Matty, you can't leave your toys...
Oh, my God!
Palo Alto lawyer Sam Sheridan
returned home
hoping to enjoy a family dinner,
but found tragedy waiting instead...
his wife and 2 children now
in critical condition
at Maple Valley hospital.
Now authorities have yet
to release an official statement
on the cause of the incident,
but symptoms are said to match
those of a local family
who became paralyzed early
in the week also following a meal.
Thanks for that report, Laura.
We'll let you know of
any further developments
regarding this very strange case
of possible food contamination.
We'll be right back.
Eddie,
I wanted some of that.
Oh.
Sorry, Mom
I thought you guys were done.
This thing is spreading, Hood.
Uh-huh.
Okay, look,
we know that it's a fungus.
We know that it has to be
on some kind of produce.
So, why not just get the FDA
to issue a mass recall on all
fruits and vegetables
sold in the affected area?
'Cause it's never going to happen.
Let's be conservative
and posit that our fungus
is residing on some
form of produce within
only a 500 mile radius
of the Stanner family.
- Okay.
- California
agriculture is, what,
$32 billion dollar industry.
About 40,000 square miles
in the state is farmland.
So,
if the FDA were to recall just
the produce from our area
that is a loss
of...
$2.5 billion.
I get that it's a long shot.
But...
once people figure out
that something's wrong...
Then they'll probably issue
some kind of...
voluntary recall.
They issue warnings
and guidelines all the time,
but people don't listen anymore.
Like the boy who cried wolf.
The answer has got to be
here somewhere.
It's not in there, Hood, it's in here.
It looks as though Coppertina Vineyards
transferred $10 million
to another company about
5 years ago.
Do you want to know what happened next?
Enlighten me.
Their profits started to skyrocket.
The company they paid
was...
Aeonium Agritech.
Mr. Cooper, the FBI flagged
a transfer of funds
between Aeonium
and Coppertina Vineyards
a couple years back.
Can you tell us what they spent
the $10 million on?
I'm afraid I can't
get into any of that
without our legal counsel present.
I understand, Mr. Cooper, but...
Well, I'll get into it for you.
It was a botrytis fungus.
It was genetically altered,
and now a variant of it
is paralyzing people less
than 40 miles from here.
You must know, Dr. Hood, that, uh,
anyone involved in fungal biotech
uses botrytis as their base organism.
It's common.
It's nontoxic,
relatively simple to manipulate.
any one of our corporate
colleagues could have made
- what you're looking for, just like that.
- I know what you
and your corporate colleagues
tend to do is you push a little hard,
a little bit fast...
you don't really do
scientific due diligence, so, uh...
in the past decade, you've introduced
genetically modified product
into the market without anything close
to the kind of rigorous
long-term testing
necessary to guarantee public safety,
and now lives are at stake.
So,you think we're moving
forward too fast?
You want to talk about, uh
lives at stake?
See, our products increase yield
so that farmers
can produce more food
for people to eat.
Why don't you ask
the millions of people
on the verge of starvation
in Bangladesh,
Niger, Egypt...
why don't you ask them
if we're moving forward too fast?
See, you want humanity
to keep its food all natural,
and that's very poetic,
but human beings can't eat poetry.
Without genetic modification,
most of the Third World
will starve to death
within a few months
and the rest of us...
we won't be far behind.
Your altruism is an example to us all.
Does that apply to the prices you
charge the starving nations,
or does Aeonium offer some kind
of Third World starvation discount?
Just curious.
Any more questions
you're gonna need a warrant.
I think we still have those
in this country, don't we?
You know, if you let me do my job,
I could actually help you.
Jason Cooper is everything
that is wrong with global agribusiness.
Greed masquerading
beneath a thin veneer
of lofty idealism.
Which is why you don't
confront him head-on.
You stroke him, finesse him, get him
to drop his guard, and then you pounce.
Okay, I'm sorry, I apologize.
But we need answers.
This is not the only place
we're gonna find them.
I thought this was a public university.
It is.
Welcome to the brave new world
of academia, bought and paid for
by multi-billion-dollar corporations.
These companies finance
the university's labs,
and the scientists who work in them,
they pay millions of dollars
in sponsorship,
and in return they get
to keep all discoveries
the university makes.
So, all of Aeonium's research...
Is here.
What are they doing?
Recording spectra from deep
in the ultraviolet region
of the electromagnetic spectrum,
through the visible region,
into the near infrared.
No, really, what are they doing?
May I?
You got the wrong maximum
absorbency wavelength.
For pnitrophenol, the machine should be
at 410, not 418.
I knew that.
Oh, who's, uh...
who's been, uh
working with botrytis fungus?
Oh, that's, uh...
that's Professor Altschuler.
Botrytis has been his thing
ever since he was an undergrad
at Cal Tech.
Looks good... who's his underwriter?
Aeonium.
Well, we're here with the...
FBI.
And, uh,
I'd kind of like to talk
to Professor Altschuler.
Yeah.
Sure... I mean, if you can find him.
What do you mean?
He's MIA.
He hasn't been into work all week,
and he's not returning
his phone calls, either.
Not gonna get tenure
slacking off like that.
No.
Mr. Cooper, Karl Altschuler is here.
I told him you were busy, but...
This is why we stopped.
This is what we thought could happen.
I read that.
Calm down, Karl.
I won't calm down!
People are dying because...
you restarted the project
against my explicit recommendation.
And I followed your recommendation,
and I shut that research down.
My name is all over this
research, Jason.
This isn't connected.
It's in the records.
It just can't be.
It is, and you know it.
Be very careful, Karl.
You have a career to think about.
And if you start telling everybody
that Aeonium is involved in this
well...
an accusation is just as good
as a guilty verdict
in this day and age.
And it's just as dangerous, too.
For you.
For all of us.
For all of us, Karl.
Karl!
Altschuler last swiped his
credit card here.
Patriot Act again?
You're lucky I'm not tempted
to abuse my powers.
This should be it.
Professor Altschuler?
Professor Altschuler, it's the FBI.
Let's try this.
He's dead.
Drug overdose?
I'll call the police.
Fascinating.
That's got the thickened tail
of the Androctonus crassicauda
but the size and coloring
of the Leiurus quinquestriatus.
But it's a scorpion.
Yeah, it's a scorpion.
But it's no species
I've ever seen before.
I expect a geneticist
of Altschuler's caliber would be
more than able to engineer a hybrid.
So, what are you, a bug expert, too?
It's not a bug, it's an arachnid.
And no, I'm no expert.
Someone very close to me
was, um, involved in an experimental
brain cancer treatment
that used scorpion venom.
It was your wife...
right?
I... I know she died of cancer
2 years ago.
Yeah, it was quite a promising treatment
actually, but, um...
unfortunately, not quite on time.
I'm sorry, Hood.
This wasn't drug related.
This was an overdose of scorpion venom.
The thing about scorpions
is they don't go for humans.
They go for insects.
That's it.
It's a pesticide.
What?
Oh, my God, it's brilliant.
Scorpion venom is made
to paralyze insects.
If Altschuler could take
the botrytis fungus
and combine it with the scorpion venom,
he would have
a totally organic pesticide.
To spray on the produce...
to kill insects with the venom?
And that is what
has been paralyzing our victims.
No bite marks or stings.
And nobody's going to
be checking for scorpion venom
because the only deadly scorpions
native to the U.S.
are in the Arizona desert.
What I don't understand is
why the venom was released
in our victims
when it's only supposed
to attack insects.
Or why it affected everyone
in the Stanner family
except for Emily.
We've got the bullet
but we don't have the trigger.
No... but we have something else.
Poor bastard.
He was trying to atone for
the mess he made.
But to make enough antibodies
to produce a scorpion antivenin,
he'd have to endure sting after sting.
Let's just hope the dose
that killed him
was enough to turn his blood...
into a cure.
Dr. Richards has the
hospital toxicologist
working on synthesizing an antivenin
from Altschuler's blood.
We'll just have to wait and see.
You hungry?
No, I'm fine.
Hood, you should eat something.
You call that eating?
I know, the sweet tooth.
You could've just asked.
This is it; this is the trigger.
My candy?
You know what's in this?
"Licoricey" goodness?
Insects.
Carmine. It's a red food coloring
made from a South American beetle.
I'm suddenly in the mood
for some fresh produce.
Have you had breakfast yet, Mr. Cooper?
Strawberries, maybe?
Rachel, what did the Stanners
have for breakfast?
Corn flakes, pancakes, fruit salad...
grapefruit juice?
Pink grapefruit juice
made with carmine.
And the fruit salad
probably contained fungus
from your pesticide.
The Sheridan family.
Oh, the Sheridan family,
they ate any number of
fruits and vegetables for dinner.
Finished with red velvet cake
carmine red.
It's a synergy effect.
See, the fungus,
it attacks the insect proteins.
It doesn't know they've already
been eaten by a human.
So the fungus is the loaded gun,
and the food coloring containing
the insect proteins
is the trigger.
Around 2 years
and several million dollars
into the project,
we decided that the end product
wasn't viable anymore.
You see, when we fed our
test animals food which was dusted
with the, uh, pesticide, see
most of them were fine
Except for one
Which was paralyzed
I mean, we did everything by the book,
you know, for a phase 3 trial
The test sample sizes,
genetic lines, everything
And I thought it was just
some kind of anomaly,
but Altschuler, of course
he was obsessed,
so he, he did a culture of the
dead animal's body,
ran all kinds of tests and
And that's when he discovered
the fatal synergy
We stopped the project before
it went any further
We sent what was left to
a biowaste disposal facility,
and that was that
Until now
You should have contacted
the authorities
the minute you suspected something
If those people die
it's negligent homicide
No, uh, you got to believe me here
I have all the paperwork on file,
uh, all of our waste goes to
a federally licensed
disposal facility just east of here
It's a 45-minute drive
All right, all right!
Nice and easy!
2-3-5-8-7-0-1
This one checks out
- Where are the rest?
- That's it!
Ground radar confirms we got
10 tanks of pesticides
There should be 14
We're going to have to question
all these workers,
anyone whose had access
to the disposal field
in the past 12 months
Hood, car!
Where are the 4 missing
canisters of Aeonium pesticide?
People are going to die!
- Tell me!
- O-Okay
Okay! I-I gave them to my dad
I just wanted to help him out a little,
that's all!
And it did!
Rachel
Sir!
Put the can down!
You get away
My boy called me and told me
to burn the fields
That's exactly what I'm doing
People are sick because you put
Aeonium pesticides in your crops
You put the lives
of every person who ate
produce from your farm at serious risk
By burning your fields,
there's a very good chance
you're going to spread
whatever organism
made those people sick
to the neighboring farms
You see those fields over there?
Monsanto
You see these fields over here?
Crops all the way to the base
of those mountains?
That's Dole
When my father's father
settled this land
it was small family farms
for as far as the eye could see
Now, we're the only ones left
Drop it, now
Last year we almost lost this place
Yeah, when we planted the new crop
my boy called me and he said,
"Dad," he says," I got something
that we can put on the crops
"that'll really make a difference "
So we put it on there
We used it, yes, sir
Now, I knew where it come from
It worked so good, I didn't question it
Well, maybe you should have
That's the state police
It's over, sir
Well, I'll, uh
I'll, I'll go with you
I'm sorry about what we did
I'm real sorry
Mom, Dad, this is Dr Hood
He's the only one that believed
I wasn't trying to poison you guys
Thank you
Oh, don't mention it
I'm just glad the scorpion
antivenin worked
But Emily still needs to see
a chemistry tutor
We were lucky
Fungus tends to mutate really quickly
Sooner or later
there'd be a hardier strain
and way more people
would've been at risk
Guess I'm going to have
to look at my food labels
more closely from now on
Uh, natural coloring
So, you're saying that's just bugs, huh?
Maybe, maybe not
According to the FDA
as long as it's "natural" it
could be anything
Green food coloring, on the other hand,
is a petroleum
derived triphenylmethane
Nothing natural about it
Yummy
We're in here!
Help, please!
It's my mom, my dad and my brother.
I got the kid.
- Seizing. Diaphoretic
- I don't know what happened.
Are they going to be okay?
What's wrong?
Paralysis. I'll go back for the
traction board.
There's no time. The kid just
stopped breathing.
He's cyanotic, we got to tube him.
- You have to help them, please
- Both breathing.
Come on now, son.
We're losing him.
Dr. Hood.
I'm Wallace Bennett,
Chief of the Major
Investigations Division.
I'm heading the Go Team on this case.
I put in a call to the FBI director
to thank him
for sending you over here on
such short notice.
My people have been over operations,
structures, power plants,
systems and human performance,
but so far, we've got nothing.
We also did a full battery of
chemical testing
for explosive residue.
Results negative across the board.
We keep mining the same data
but there's something
we're missing here and I...
...over and over.
Over and over..
Dr. Hood, we need something...
Dr. Hood?
Dr. Hood?
Did you hear a word I just said?
Ice cream.
Excuse me?
Do you have ice cream?
And a hot plate.
Vanilla.
Dr. Hood,what the hell is
this all about?
The landing gear on this
aircraft is directly adjacent
to the engine, right?
- That's where they tend to put it
- So...
after a long flight,it's going
to get very hot.
So... you bring my entire investigation
to a halt just to tell my people that
engines get hot?
On the night the plane crashed
the temperature
on the ground was minus 20 Celsius.
That is way below freezing.
Thermal shock fracture.
Yup.
We tested the hydraulics
in the landing gear for extremes,
but not for rapid temperature change.
I don't suppose the NTSB could help me
get a new watch?
I'll give you my damn Rolex.
Oh, that won't be necessary.
Dr. Hood's employers at the FBI are
perfectly capable
of reimbursing him
for any expenses and/or...
personal items damaged during
the course of an investigation.
Mr. Bennett,
this is Special Agent Rachel
Young, my, um...
I'm his FBI handler.
And we've got somewhere else to be.
Sir.
A family in San Jose, California
ate breakfast
- approximately 36 hours ago.
- And?
And they've been paralyzed ever since.
EMT has brought them in as
a triple case of spinal trauma,
but we ruled that out right away.
We did a tox screen for
botulism and Lyme disease,
spinal taps for meningitis.
Negative on all counts.
It has to be poisoning of some kind.
Wrinkle is the daughter ate
the same breakfast
as the rest of the family, continues
to be asymptomatic.
Are you Jacob Hood with
the Bureau?
He is. And you are?
I'm Agent Morris, FDA.
This is my colleague Agent
Wilson with the CDC.
We both requested you. Thanks
for coming in so quickly.
Heard about your work on the hantavirus
case last March.
I'd like to hear about your work here
earlier today.
We screened and catalogued
the stomach content on
all 3 victims,
plus the asymptomatic daughter.
No toxins or bacteria known
to lead to paralysis.
The CDC's primary
objective is to keep this thing
from spreading,
while we at the FDA are
mainly concerned
with the safety of the food chain.
But frankly...
We're stumped.
Where's the daughter?
Emily Stanner, 16 years old.
She's in with the police right now.
They think she did this?
Well, they don't know what to think.
But,you know there's a case in
New Jersey a couple of years back...
a teenage kid put antifreeze in
his parents' iced tea.
Turned out he was pissed off
about being grounded.
Listen, Emily, the truth is,
lots of kids get angry
at their parents.
Look... if your folks
are mistreating you or abusing you,
mentally, emotionally...
even physically,
it could count in your favor.
Tell me the truth about
everything you know,
and it could go a long way towards
helping you out in court later.
Excuse me, uh, but we're busy here,
if you don't mind, huh?
I do mind. You shouldn't be in the
same room with this patient,
not without adequate protection.
What do you mean," protection" ?
She's carrying
type 5 C-vector airborne virus.
It's highly contagious, no known cure.
Really, no one mentioned this to you?
It's okay,
as long as you've had no
physical contact,
it should be fine.
Don't go anywhere.
I'm going to look into this.
Don't worry... there's no such thing
as a type 5 c-vector.
I said that to scare
them off so I could talk
to you in private.
My name's Jacob Hood.
I'm kind of the science
guy for the FBI.
My family... are they gonna be okay?
Is the same thing gonna happen to me?
I don't know.
That's what I'm here to find out.
The police, they think that...
I didn't do anything
to my mom, my dad or my little brother.
I know.
You do?
Yeah.
The forensic pathologists
they've been over
your house with a fine-toothed
comb to find
anything that would've caused your
family's paralysis.
So if you're a poisoner, you're
a very good one.
And I've seen your high
school transcripts,
and Chemistry, well, you failed it, twice.
So I don't think you're
too much of a threat.
What I want to know is
is there anything
you can remember that
you did differently
from your family yesterday morning?
Anything at all?
No.
All we did was eat breakfast.
Just breakfast.
We've already got forensics.
Want to tell me again why we're here?
Any idea, Rachel, how many
seemingly innocuous
household ingredients
could actually kill you?
Air freshener?
Smells good.
Key ingredient: formaldehyde.
Could cause headaches,
nausea, nosebleeds,
dizziness, memory loss...
Margarine?
What's poisonous about margarine?
The benzoic acid.
Fatally so, if you're allergic to it.
You know the use of
the term " nontoxic"
is only for advertising.
It has no regulated governmental
definition whatsoever.
Well, nothing in here looks
all that dangerous.
Be that as it may, we've got
a sample size of 4 subjects,
3 who ate breakfast and got sick,
and one who ate the same breakfast
and didn't get sick.
Make that a sample size of 5
Looks like they have a dog.
- Hey, Eddie.
- Hey, Mom.
- Hey, son.
- Brought the mail up.
How about a cold one?
Don't mind if I do.
You gonna stay for supper?
Sounds like a plan.
What's in the mail?
Oh, relax, Mom, it's just bills
and junk.
We got it, Bob.
All right.
"Notification of full payment. "
We did it, babe.
We sure did.
Eddie, we paid off the farm.
We need to celebrate.
- Huh.
- Forget the beers,
we are opening the champagne tonight.
That's an idea.
You know, about a year ago, we were
a hair's breath away from
losing the place.
Now...
it's ours, free and clear.
And we have you to thank for that.
Let's go get some champagne. Come on.
One of the nice things about dogs is
that they're omnivores,
just like us humans.
So, Trixie
probably just had a little
bit of everything
the Stanners did.
Poor Trixie.
So why aren't the Stanners dead?
Because dogs metabolize toxins much
faster than we do.
Look.
Single mass...
going down the digestive
tract into the stomach.
Or up out of the stomach,
as the case may be.
What is it?
Fungus.
Help! Please!
I need help!
Emily, your family's bodies have been,
uh, colonized
by a fungal organisms
kind of like a mold,
that's growing inside of them.
And normally the doctors
would give them
an anti-fungal medication
that kill the fungus and allow
them to get better.
But you tried that, and it didn't work?
Well...
Mmm.
In this case, um,
even though we have killed
the-the fungus,
the paralysis is still progressing.
So we are trying to find out
why that is.
I don't have any other family.
You have to fix them.
This is our fungus.
Take a look.
It's...
beautiful.
Botrytis cinerea.
It's everywhere.
There're probably spores of it
in the air we're breathing right now.
Don't worry... it only, uh,
grows on plants.
That's why it's on the food
inside the dog,
but not actually on the dog's
tissues itself.
So Trixie ate whatever the family ate.
Mm-hmm.
And we know the family ate
plant material...
fruits and vegetables...
but we don't know which fruits
and/or vegetables were contaminated.
There's our conundrum.
In its natural state,
botrytis cinerea is completely
harmless to humans.
From the looks of that specimen,
I'd say it's been genetically modified.
And it's not harmless anymore.
Care to explain why we're
hunting a deadly fungus
in a wine shop?
Because some winemakers use
genetically modified fungus
in their product.
And Coppertina Vineyards
is one of the world's leading makers
of botrytized wine.
Once upon a time
in Medieval France, there was a nobleman
who liked to oversee every aspect
of the winemaking in his domain.
Control freak.
Exactly.
Until one summer, he fell in love.
So he took the fair maiden
to his bedchamber.
They pretty much stayed there.
They couldn't wait any longer
so in desperation
they picked the molding
grapes off the vine
and made wine out of what was left.
And?
And it was delicious.
So they named this fungus,
our little fella,
botrytis cinerea...
or "noble rot", after the nobleman
whose great love had
unwittingly created
such ambrosia.
But botrytized wine making
is a gamble with nature.
One too many days of rain or sun,
and the whole harvest is worthless.
So why would the winemakers
take that risk?
Why?
Because this bottle
of Coppertina's botrytized vintage
is $1,500.
The only problem with
your botrytis theory
is that the Stanners didn't
have wine for breakfast.
So how did they get sick?
A fungus's spores
kind of work like, um...
...this little fella.
Any organism that reproduces
by spreading itself over the
largest area possible,
you'd be a fool to think that just
'cause you put it on one crop
that's where it's gonna stay.
So the fungus could be...
anywhere.
What's wrong with his eyes, Hood?
Keratomycosis.
It's an infection of the cornea
caused by overexposure to a...
mycological organism.
English, please.
There is a fungus among us.
And I bet it's on these grapes.
Hey!
Todo el mundo a trabajar.
Can't you read?
This area's for employees only.
We... We just wanted to take a picture.
It's our first vacation.
Oh, will you take it for us?
No? Okay.
You want to see the fields,
you can pay for the tour
in the tasting room.
- Intending?
- Of course.
- Yes.
- Thank you.
Come on, honey.
Well, good news, bad news.
Botrytis cinerea on the grapes
has been genetically altered,
but it's not the same strain
that paralyzed the Stanner family...
the nucleotide sequence is wrong.
Which means we're back to square one.
You don't seem particularly
bothered by this.
Well, just because the fungus
trail's gone cold
doesn't mean the money
trail isn't still hot.
I called in a favor at Quantico.
We'll have Coppertina's
full financial
no later than tomorrow.
Don't you need a subpoena
to look into a privately held
company's financial records?
Gotta love the Patriot Act.
Damn it, Matty.
Hey, Liz, am I in time for dessert?
Oh, Matty, you can't leave your toys...
Oh, my God!
Palo Alto lawyer Sam Sheridan
returned home
hoping to enjoy a family dinner,
but found tragedy waiting instead...
his wife and 2 children now
in critical condition
at Maple Valley hospital.
Now authorities have yet
to release an official statement
on the cause of the incident,
but symptoms are said to match
those of a local family
who became paralyzed early
in the week also following a meal.
Thanks for that report, Laura.
We'll let you know of
any further developments
regarding this very strange case
of possible food contamination.
We'll be right back.
Eddie,
I wanted some of that.
Oh.
Sorry, Mom
I thought you guys were done.
This thing is spreading, Hood.
Uh-huh.
Okay, look,
we know that it's a fungus.
We know that it has to be
on some kind of produce.
So, why not just get the FDA
to issue a mass recall on all
fruits and vegetables
sold in the affected area?
'Cause it's never going to happen.
Let's be conservative
and posit that our fungus
is residing on some
form of produce within
only a 500 mile radius
of the Stanner family.
- Okay.
- California
agriculture is, what,
$32 billion dollar industry.
About 40,000 square miles
in the state is farmland.
So,
if the FDA were to recall just
the produce from our area
that is a loss
of...
$2.5 billion.
I get that it's a long shot.
But...
once people figure out
that something's wrong...
Then they'll probably issue
some kind of...
voluntary recall.
They issue warnings
and guidelines all the time,
but people don't listen anymore.
Like the boy who cried wolf.
The answer has got to be
here somewhere.
It's not in there, Hood, it's in here.
It looks as though Coppertina Vineyards
transferred $10 million
to another company about
5 years ago.
Do you want to know what happened next?
Enlighten me.
Their profits started to skyrocket.
The company they paid
was...
Aeonium Agritech.
Mr. Cooper, the FBI flagged
a transfer of funds
between Aeonium
and Coppertina Vineyards
a couple years back.
Can you tell us what they spent
the $10 million on?
I'm afraid I can't
get into any of that
without our legal counsel present.
I understand, Mr. Cooper, but...
Well, I'll get into it for you.
It was a botrytis fungus.
It was genetically altered,
and now a variant of it
is paralyzing people less
than 40 miles from here.
You must know, Dr. Hood, that, uh,
anyone involved in fungal biotech
uses botrytis as their base organism.
It's common.
It's nontoxic,
relatively simple to manipulate.
any one of our corporate
colleagues could have made
- what you're looking for, just like that.
- I know what you
and your corporate colleagues
tend to do is you push a little hard,
a little bit fast...
you don't really do
scientific due diligence, so, uh...
in the past decade, you've introduced
genetically modified product
into the market without anything close
to the kind of rigorous
long-term testing
necessary to guarantee public safety,
and now lives are at stake.
So,you think we're moving
forward too fast?
You want to talk about, uh
lives at stake?
See, our products increase yield
so that farmers
can produce more food
for people to eat.
Why don't you ask
the millions of people
on the verge of starvation
in Bangladesh,
Niger, Egypt...
why don't you ask them
if we're moving forward too fast?
See, you want humanity
to keep its food all natural,
and that's very poetic,
but human beings can't eat poetry.
Without genetic modification,
most of the Third World
will starve to death
within a few months
and the rest of us...
we won't be far behind.
Your altruism is an example to us all.
Does that apply to the prices you
charge the starving nations,
or does Aeonium offer some kind
of Third World starvation discount?
Just curious.
Any more questions
you're gonna need a warrant.
I think we still have those
in this country, don't we?
You know, if you let me do my job,
I could actually help you.
Jason Cooper is everything
that is wrong with global agribusiness.
Greed masquerading
beneath a thin veneer
of lofty idealism.
Which is why you don't
confront him head-on.
You stroke him, finesse him, get him
to drop his guard, and then you pounce.
Okay, I'm sorry, I apologize.
But we need answers.
This is not the only place
we're gonna find them.
I thought this was a public university.
It is.
Welcome to the brave new world
of academia, bought and paid for
by multi-billion-dollar corporations.
These companies finance
the university's labs,
and the scientists who work in them,
they pay millions of dollars
in sponsorship,
and in return they get
to keep all discoveries
the university makes.
So, all of Aeonium's research...
Is here.
What are they doing?
Recording spectra from deep
in the ultraviolet region
of the electromagnetic spectrum,
through the visible region,
into the near infrared.
No, really, what are they doing?
May I?
You got the wrong maximum
absorbency wavelength.
For pnitrophenol, the machine should be
at 410, not 418.
I knew that.
Oh, who's, uh...
who's been, uh
working with botrytis fungus?
Oh, that's, uh...
that's Professor Altschuler.
Botrytis has been his thing
ever since he was an undergrad
at Cal Tech.
Looks good... who's his underwriter?
Aeonium.
Well, we're here with the...
FBI.
And, uh,
I'd kind of like to talk
to Professor Altschuler.
Yeah.
Sure... I mean, if you can find him.
What do you mean?
He's MIA.
He hasn't been into work all week,
and he's not returning
his phone calls, either.
Not gonna get tenure
slacking off like that.
No.
Mr. Cooper, Karl Altschuler is here.
I told him you were busy, but...
This is why we stopped.
This is what we thought could happen.
I read that.
Calm down, Karl.
I won't calm down!
People are dying because...
you restarted the project
against my explicit recommendation.
And I followed your recommendation,
and I shut that research down.
My name is all over this
research, Jason.
This isn't connected.
It's in the records.
It just can't be.
It is, and you know it.
Be very careful, Karl.
You have a career to think about.
And if you start telling everybody
that Aeonium is involved in this
well...
an accusation is just as good
as a guilty verdict
in this day and age.
And it's just as dangerous, too.
For you.
For all of us.
For all of us, Karl.
Karl!
Altschuler last swiped his
credit card here.
Patriot Act again?
You're lucky I'm not tempted
to abuse my powers.
This should be it.
Professor Altschuler?
Professor Altschuler, it's the FBI.
Let's try this.
He's dead.
Drug overdose?
I'll call the police.
Fascinating.
That's got the thickened tail
of the Androctonus crassicauda
but the size and coloring
of the Leiurus quinquestriatus.
But it's a scorpion.
Yeah, it's a scorpion.
But it's no species
I've ever seen before.
I expect a geneticist
of Altschuler's caliber would be
more than able to engineer a hybrid.
So, what are you, a bug expert, too?
It's not a bug, it's an arachnid.
And no, I'm no expert.
Someone very close to me
was, um, involved in an experimental
brain cancer treatment
that used scorpion venom.
It was your wife...
right?
I... I know she died of cancer
2 years ago.
Yeah, it was quite a promising treatment
actually, but, um...
unfortunately, not quite on time.
I'm sorry, Hood.
This wasn't drug related.
This was an overdose of scorpion venom.
The thing about scorpions
is they don't go for humans.
They go for insects.
That's it.
It's a pesticide.
What?
Oh, my God, it's brilliant.
Scorpion venom is made
to paralyze insects.
If Altschuler could take
the botrytis fungus
and combine it with the scorpion venom,
he would have
a totally organic pesticide.
To spray on the produce...
to kill insects with the venom?
And that is what
has been paralyzing our victims.
No bite marks or stings.
And nobody's going to
be checking for scorpion venom
because the only deadly scorpions
native to the U.S.
are in the Arizona desert.
What I don't understand is
why the venom was released
in our victims
when it's only supposed
to attack insects.
Or why it affected everyone
in the Stanner family
except for Emily.
We've got the bullet
but we don't have the trigger.
No... but we have something else.
Poor bastard.
He was trying to atone for
the mess he made.
But to make enough antibodies
to produce a scorpion antivenin,
he'd have to endure sting after sting.
Let's just hope the dose
that killed him
was enough to turn his blood...
into a cure.
Dr. Richards has the
hospital toxicologist
working on synthesizing an antivenin
from Altschuler's blood.
We'll just have to wait and see.
You hungry?
No, I'm fine.
Hood, you should eat something.
You call that eating?
I know, the sweet tooth.
You could've just asked.
This is it; this is the trigger.
My candy?
You know what's in this?
"Licoricey" goodness?
Insects.
Carmine. It's a red food coloring
made from a South American beetle.
I'm suddenly in the mood
for some fresh produce.
Have you had breakfast yet, Mr. Cooper?
Strawberries, maybe?
Rachel, what did the Stanners
have for breakfast?
Corn flakes, pancakes, fruit salad...
grapefruit juice?
Pink grapefruit juice
made with carmine.
And the fruit salad
probably contained fungus
from your pesticide.
The Sheridan family.
Oh, the Sheridan family,
they ate any number of
fruits and vegetables for dinner.
Finished with red velvet cake
carmine red.
It's a synergy effect.
See, the fungus,
it attacks the insect proteins.
It doesn't know they've already
been eaten by a human.
So the fungus is the loaded gun,
and the food coloring containing
the insect proteins
is the trigger.
Around 2 years
and several million dollars
into the project,
we decided that the end product
wasn't viable anymore.
You see, when we fed our
test animals food which was dusted
with the, uh, pesticide, see
most of them were fine
Except for one
Which was paralyzed
I mean, we did everything by the book,
you know, for a phase 3 trial
The test sample sizes,
genetic lines, everything
And I thought it was just
some kind of anomaly,
but Altschuler, of course
he was obsessed,
so he, he did a culture of the
dead animal's body,
ran all kinds of tests and
And that's when he discovered
the fatal synergy
We stopped the project before
it went any further
We sent what was left to
a biowaste disposal facility,
and that was that
Until now
You should have contacted
the authorities
the minute you suspected something
If those people die
it's negligent homicide
No, uh, you got to believe me here
I have all the paperwork on file,
uh, all of our waste goes to
a federally licensed
disposal facility just east of here
It's a 45-minute drive
All right, all right!
Nice and easy!
2-3-5-8-7-0-1
This one checks out
- Where are the rest?
- That's it!
Ground radar confirms we got
10 tanks of pesticides
There should be 14
We're going to have to question
all these workers,
anyone whose had access
to the disposal field
in the past 12 months
Hood, car!
Where are the 4 missing
canisters of Aeonium pesticide?
People are going to die!
- Tell me!
- O-Okay
Okay! I-I gave them to my dad
I just wanted to help him out a little,
that's all!
And it did!
Rachel
Sir!
Put the can down!
You get away
My boy called me and told me
to burn the fields
That's exactly what I'm doing
People are sick because you put
Aeonium pesticides in your crops
You put the lives
of every person who ate
produce from your farm at serious risk
By burning your fields,
there's a very good chance
you're going to spread
whatever organism
made those people sick
to the neighboring farms
You see those fields over there?
Monsanto
You see these fields over here?
Crops all the way to the base
of those mountains?
That's Dole
When my father's father
settled this land
it was small family farms
for as far as the eye could see
Now, we're the only ones left
Drop it, now
Last year we almost lost this place
Yeah, when we planted the new crop
my boy called me and he said,
"Dad," he says," I got something
that we can put on the crops
"that'll really make a difference "
So we put it on there
We used it, yes, sir
Now, I knew where it come from
It worked so good, I didn't question it
Well, maybe you should have
That's the state police
It's over, sir
Well, I'll, uh
I'll, I'll go with you
I'm sorry about what we did
I'm real sorry
Mom, Dad, this is Dr Hood
He's the only one that believed
I wasn't trying to poison you guys
Thank you
Oh, don't mention it
I'm just glad the scorpion
antivenin worked
But Emily still needs to see
a chemistry tutor
We were lucky
Fungus tends to mutate really quickly
Sooner or later
there'd be a hardier strain
and way more people
would've been at risk
Guess I'm going to have
to look at my food labels
more closely from now on
Uh, natural coloring
So, you're saying that's just bugs, huh?
Maybe, maybe not
According to the FDA
as long as it's "natural" it
could be anything
Green food coloring, on the other hand,
is a petroleum
derived triphenylmethane
Nothing natural about it
Yummy