"Yo, Gordon." "Brian took the score today." "Get out of here." "He got luck." "Yeah, I told you he's gonna tear you up." "Man, you can hear who you can kiss." "I'll check you later. / All right." "Hey, you gotta help me get through European history." "Help you?" "Who gonna help me?" "Peter." "You can see there, man." "Nice pal." "All right, man." "Hey, come." "Cover your mouth, man." "Man, some kind of crud's going around campus." "Yeah, well, don't be hacking on me." "Abbey and I are going to one of those, uh, fancy bed and breakfast places." "You know what a hypochondriac she is." "Is that hypochondriac or nymphomaniac?" "You'll die before you know." "What I just say about spreading germs?" "Man, I can't help it." "You can help it." "Knock it off." "Don't cough on me." "Cover your mouth." "Why do you always got a problem with stuff I do?" "I got a problem with you coughing on me." "Just mind your business." "Stop spreading germs, you son of bitch!" "All day long." "Yap, yap, yap, man." "Hey, man." "Gordon?" "Gordon?" "Talk to me." "Talk to me, man." "What's up?" "What do we do?" "Get help!" "Go!" "Coach..." "Coach!" "Something's happening..." "What the hell is going on?" "Medical investigation ½ÃÁð 1." "Á¦ 6 È­." "Team" "´Ò ¸ÆµµÇÁ (½ºÆ¼ºì ÄÚ³Ê ¹Ú"ç æµ)" "ÄÌ¸® Àª¸®¾ö½º (³ªÅ"¸® µà·±Æ® ¹Ú"ç æµ)" "Å©¸®½ºÅäÆÛ °íÇÜ (¸¶ÀÏ½º ¸ÆÄÉÀÌºê ¹Ú"ç æµ)" "¾È³ª º§Å©³À (¿¡¹Ù ·Î½Ã æµ)" "Æ®·ÎÀÌ À©ºÎ½Ã (ÇÁ·©Å© ÆÄÀ£ æµ)" "ORIGINAL AIR DATE ON NBC: 2004/10/15" "Thank you." "Northern nebraska is the largest private university in the State." "They have their own accredited hospital on site so we won't have to carry as much equipment off the plane..." " Sorry I'm late." " Don't worry about it." "I was studying for my EIS evaluations." "The test is less than two months away. / Miles..." "Sorry." "What'd I miss?" "Two college football players come down with vertigo, numbness, paralysis and seizures within minutes of each other." "and then slip into a coma." "One ballplayer was black, one was white." "Different body type, different blood type." "What was their initial diagnosis?" "The local doctors thought it was an electrolyte imbalance or an infection." "They gave them MRIs and found lesions which suggested an inflammation of the brain." "The patients have been given azathioprine, but they've had no improvement." "Two guys in their early 20s, struck down at random." "Random?" "Must be something more." "There's only two patients." "Is that a big enough cluster to send us packing?" "The more unusual the outbreak, the smaller the cluster has to be." "With an extremely rare disease, all we need is one." "Suit up." "We go in two hours." "NORTHERN NEBRASKA UNIVERSITY" "Thank you for coming on such short notice." "Peter Warren still hasn't come out of coma." "The other patient, Gordon Kraft, slips in and out of consciousness." "He's on demerol." "We'll need access to their lives, dorm rooms, personal effects, schedules./ I assumed as much." "David Weiner is the university's athletic director." "He's expecting you." "And I have briefs of their families' medical histories if that will help." "Thank you for calling us, doctor." "You did the right thing." "Something wrong?" "I, uh, recommended that the football team be quarantined for seven days until we determine the cause of the lesions." "And?" " It's homecoming week." "Football season on a sports-crazed campus." "I was denied." "Even though I made my quarantine recommendation in confidence, news travels." "I've had death threats." "Yahoos mostly." "We'll help you in every way we can." "Eva, set up a meeting with the athletic director in regards to alumni and press relations." "Let's kill this rumor mill before it starts." "Powell, Miles, standard sweep." "Check for everything." "Natalie, let's go look at the other patient." "Doctor." "Is there any blurriness, color blindness, pain?" "No. / Nothing?" "Uh-uh." "Okay." "How's Peter?" "I hear the doctors talking." "Is he sick, too?" "We think he has the same condition that you do." "Damn." "Doc, what's going on?" "We're not sure." "We're gonna figure it out together." "What was the last thing you remember before waking up here?" "Me and Peter were talking about whatnot." "I went to shower." "My leg... went numb for like five minutes, like a charley-horse." "I just shook it off as pain or whatever." "I remember the room spinning." "Next thing I know, I had all these tubes in me." "Did you and Peter ever use illegal drugs?" "I doubt if Peter has, and me, I just say no." "Did you eat or drink anything before scrimmage?" "Just my usual, five egg whites, decaf coffee, energy bar." "Where did you have breakfast that day?" "Conrad hall." "Did Peter or anyone else from the team eat there as well?" "I don't know." "I didn't see anyone else there but me." "Wow, you must be the big man on campus." "The black man's burden." "You ever play?" "You look big enough." "Yep." "College ball." "Free safety." "I liked hitting people." "Were you any good?" "Look where I am now." "Oh," "Oh, oh, god." "What's wrong with me, doc?" "Get a morphine drip in here." "Hold on, Gordon." "Just hold on." "Look at that jagged ridge of lesions along the frontal lobe." "That explains the seizures and the wide range of symptoms." "Are you thinking meningitis?" "Acute malignant MS." "Multiple sclerosis?" "How is that possible?" "They're only 20." "MS is one of the top disabling conditions of young adults." "MS patients' own immune systems have turn against themselves, attacking the nerves in their brains." "But a cluster of MS?" "Has that ever happened?" "The most famous one was the Faeroe islands off the northern coast of Scotland during world war II." "What caused that?" "Oats, low seafood diets and lack of sunshine." "None of which come into play here." "So why hasn't the entire campus come down with it?" "Those who are genetically predisposed for autoimmune diseases are the most at risk." "That's about eight percent of the population. / That's right." "So the football players may have come into contact with some foreign destructive agent mimicking the nerve structure in their brains." "Their immune systems can't tell the two apart and they mistakenly attack the nerves." "The trigger agent is having a harsher effect on Peter Warren than Gordon Kraft." "So what do Kraft and Warren have in common?" "Maybe it's tainted anabolic steroids or designer drugs." "Let's search for environmental factors, starting with the dining commons." "I don't think it's drugs, not with these guys." "Because?" " I follow college ball, and guys like Warren and Kraft they have their entire NFL careers on the line." "One random drug test they'd be finished." "Len Bias dropped dead of an overdose." "Ricky Williams of the dolphins failed his drug tests and LT..." "Take your pick. / That's the pros, I'm talking about..." "Well, I'll check the location of the team's last away game." "See if there's anything similar happening with the opposing team." "Explore the possibility of steroids, and you..." "Look for drug commonality." "Specifically designer drugs like GHB, ecstasy." "Dr. Connor, you want... / Miles, think beyond your assumptions." "Even though they may prove to be true." "Homecoming's always a royal pain in my ass." "I got alumni who think that just because they kick the school a few bucks, we got to kiss their behind." "Now this." "We may have to issue a health alert to all visitors of the university prior to the weekend." "Young lady, that would be a PR disaster." "I got 42,000 alumni and parents coming in just three days." "All the more reason to be proactive until we identify what's affecting the students." "I'm up to neck in campus tours and pep rallies, athletes' dinners." "Bless you. / You okay?" "Yeah, it's just the change of seasons." "It always hits me like a truck." "This indian summer's not helping either, you know." "It's always something, isn't it?" "Wife says I've got to lose a few pounds, you know." "She should talk." "Geez, I need a vacation." "Excuse me." "Conner." "Hey, look, I'm getting pushed back in gaining access to the athletes' dorms." "The football players won't allow us access to their rooms." "Yeah, surprised?" "Jocks are superstitious and paranoid." "Don't, don't tell them I said that." "I'll take care of it on my end." "All right, I'll tell you what, Mr. Weiner." "I won't issue a health alert for now, if you grease the wheels of student relations and allow us full access." "It's the only way we're gonna figure out what's wrong with your players." "All right." "Okay, lift your tongue, Jimmy." "Great." "Hey, do you mind giving a urine sample?" "I pee in a cup at least once a week." "What's one more?" "The guys were wondering how Gordon and Peter were doing." "We're doing everything we can." "Hey, are there a lot of drugs on campus?" "Uh, yeah." "What about you?" "You party?" "Ok at me, man." "There's no way I'm screwing this up for a bump." "This is my ticket." "Yeah, I hear you." "Listen, um... if I wanted to score, could you tell me where I could go?" "You think Gordon and Peter are using?" "They don't." "What do we got?" "Another student, 19, collapsed while taking an exam." "Symptoms?" " Loss of balance and muscle coordination, slurred speech, tonic-chronic seizure." "This disease is no longer contained." "Are there any other football players..." "Her professor thought she'd only fainted, until she started convulsing." "We've been working on an unfounded assumption." "The commonality isn't among the football players." " She's the second girl in two days." " The second?" "Another freshman came in with the same symptoms two days ago." "Do you think there might be some connection between that girl and the other football players?" "No." "Students fall ill all the time, for a hundred different reasons, and the first girl presented with symptoms that were quite different from the players." "Is she still under your care?" "I need to speak with her." "Amy, I'm Dr. Durant." "Can you hear me?" "What happened?" "We think you may have had a mild seizure." "We gave you some medication to stabilize you, and they ran some tests." "You're gonna be okay." "I just need to ask you a few questions, all right?" " Do you eat at Conrad hall?" " Sometimes." "My dorm is on the other side of campus so..." "Do you socialize with any of the football players on campus?" "I see them around, not really." "Oh, my god." "Claire!" "You know her?" "She's my pledge sister." "What happened to her?" "We're working on that, but she's stable." "You two are in the same sorority?" "Kind of." "We're pledges." "Delta Theta Zeta." "I'm afraid to ask." "How'd you score GHB?" "When I was a teenager," "I used to take the bart into San Francisco and hang out at the haight." "You could buy anything there." "I learned the local language." "Really." "Okay, so how can GHB cause MS?" "Well, a designer drug like GHB can attach itself to the nerves in the brain, creating a structure the immune system doesn't recognize." "The body responds by attacking it and possibly destroying the nerves." "If this disease is MS, I don't think the sorority girls have it." "There's no evidence of lesions on their brain scans." "There's a different causative agent." " What about Conrad hall?" " I double-checked." "It's a big campus, and neither of the girls have eaten there in weeks." "There is no commonality between the pledges and the football players, at least none that I've found so far." "Not even parties?" "At least none they'll admit to." "I have to arrange a meeting with the sorority president." " Maybe she can tell us more." " I'll do it." "I haven't been to a sorority in a long time." "Well, the odds against two distinct yet similar medical anomalies on the same campus have got to be huge." "A university is like an army barracks or a prison." "People living in close quarters, sharing everything including diseases." "So there has to be a connection between the both of them." "Yeah, I agree." "but if there isn't, we thought we had one disease, now we have two." "Look, we'll keep looking for other factors, but designer drugs as the MS trigger appears to be the most likely suspect." "Even though we found no drugs in their systems?" "But you did find users on this campus." "including, so I hear, some of the football players." "It's not a leap, but the intake of a drug like GHB was the tipping point." "Yeah, coupled with the family's history of auto-immune diseases like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma." "Two college football players come down with MS in the same week?" "The sports magazines and talk shows are gonna jump all over this." "I'm more concerned with the university trying to stonewall us." "Any change in Peter Warren's status?" "There's a lot of useful information locked in his head." "MS strikes every patient differently." "In many ways, Gordon's the lucky one." "He's functioning. / Yeah." "And there's nothing that stands out with their opponents in Omaha." "What about the sorority girls?" "I certainly know they don't have MS." "I started them on a round of antibiotics." "Eva and I are heading to the sorority house." "But first you and I have to deliver some bad news." "Look, Mr. Weiner, I don't know how to say this." "but our theory is, your players developed MS through their ingestion of an illegal drug, most likely gamma hydroxybutyrate, also known as GHB." "GHB?" "Isn't that the, uh, date rape drug?" " It is." "But it's also popular as a party drug." "Oh, hold the phone, that's impossible." "We do random drug-testing year-round." "Did you test them for GHB?" "We tested for over a dozen party drugs." "Both patients came back negative." "There you go." "However, GHB clears the bloodstream within four to seven hours, so we can't rule that out." "Designer drugs have had a history of causing neurological damage." "Maybe something else is causing this illness." "We've considered that." "we have tested their food, clothing, dorms, environments where they spend their time." "There is no other match." "What about that sick sorority girl?" "What, is she a druggy, too?" "We believe their cases are a separate issue." "Dr. Durant will continue her analysis of the girls." "In the meantime, we've started Kraft and Warren on a treatment of corticosteroids and beta-interferons." "That should stabilize their symptoms in the short-term." "Listen, I oversee 17 different sports teams." "Honestly, I don't remember half of them." "But I know Gordon Kraft and Peter Warren." "Their health freaks." "I can vouch that they are absolutely drug-free." "It has to be something else causing this illness." "David, look, we've ruled out every other likely designer drug." "Regrettable as it is, these boys may have brought it upon themselves." "It's a disaster." "Of all the times." "Homecoming." "I know." "Not only that, we were about to initiate the pledge class in a week." "Oh, we talked to all six of them." "They're very excited." "What's involved with initiation?" "There's a candle lighting ceremony and a lot of speeches." "They get their pins." "You know, it brings the girls together." "Do the girls party with the football team?" "Well, they come to our invites sometimes." "We're more of an academic house than most, but we do throw awesome date parties." "Are the pledges allowed to these parties?" " Allowed?" " They're our honored guests." " When was your last one?" "Um... three weeks ago." "Oh, Beverly hillbillies." "We even made our own moonshine." "Were Gordon Kraft or Peter Warren at that party?" "Peter Warren?" "Oh, my god, I wish." "I'd like a sample of that moonshine." "I doubt we have any left." "Why?" "Because we're attempting to get to the root of the infection, and if you served grain alcohol that you guys made, you might have exposed your guests to impurities or poisons." "I think I should speak to our legal council at national before going any further." "Two of your pledges are in the hospital." "I know that, and that's sad, but the pledges sign a waiver." "We're not responsible if their illness occurred outside of the house." "This isn't about assigning responsibility." "It's about saving your friends." "The Delta Theta Zeta sorority is not the pledges' respondent superior." "There's no evidence of vicarious liability, nor did we have an affirmative duty to rescue, even if they did become ill on our property." "Let me guess, your dad's an attorney." "No." "I'm pre-law." "How do you know it happened outside the house?" "Well, I don't, but.../ well, then you don't have a legal leg to stand on." "Two of our associates will be by to take samples." " How does it feel to be back?" " Frightening." "Wait, the sorority president actually lawyered up?" "Tried to, according to Natalie." "Well, there's nothing out of the ordinary at the house." "What do you think she's trying to hide?" "Who knows, with their super-secret rituals or whatever." "Dr. Connor." "Mr. Weiner." "What can I do for you?" "I know it's hard to prove something didn't happen." "But I wanted you to have Gordon Kraft's and, uh," "Peter Warren's drug tests for the last two years." "In my bones, I know these boys are drug-free." "I wanted you to know it in case you had to write some kind of report." "I wouldn't want any other story going public." "Every sports agent in the country's sniffing around." "Kraft's expected to be a low first-round draft pick." "If designer drugs aren't the commonality, what are these two guys doing or in contact with that's triggering an autoimmune reaction?" "I'll go back over their dorm rooms and lockers." "I may have missed something." "Thank you." "You have a rare disease." "It's called malignant multiple sclerosis." "Something's causing your body to attack itself." " How'd it happen?" " We don't know." "We're doing everything we can to discover what the cause is." "Will finding out make me get better?" "It'll prevent other people from getting ill." "What about football?" "Will I be able to play again?" "As your doctor, I'd be lying if I said yeah." "What do you need from me?" "Honesty." "You're in college." "You don't drink anything stronger than water?" "You don't believe me?" "I'm a nutrition major." "I know what's good for me." "No processed food, no caffeine, no sodas." "Why you sweating me, man?" "Because we ran into a wall, and I don't like losing." "What do you want me to tell you?" "You know what?" "It's time we visit Peter." "You've been in a coma for two days." "We wanted you stabilized bere you saw him." "But he'll be okay, right?" "He'll come out of it?" "Gordon, if there's something you haven't told me, now would be the time." "To save your friend." "We have our own personal trainer, Peter and me." "The university, they don't allow it, but... he was helping us bulk up fast." "How?" "Bodybuilding supplements." "Creatine, hydroxadrine, methyl-D." "He said that they was all natural." "That they was just supposed to make us bigger and stronger." "Something wrong?" "Amy Jenkins has strep throat." "I've had strep before." "I didn't wind up in an ICU." "In severe cases, strep can lead to Sydenham's chorea, which causes jerky movements." "Jim Henson, the muppets guy, died of complications following strep." "I didn't know it was so serious." "The boys' personal trainer has a sketchy record, from New Jersey, to Ohio, and now in Nebraska." "He's been reported to have smuggled roids from Mexico and dispensed them to his clients under the table." "Steroids alone can't cause MS, but Mexican steroids are often adulterated with foreign agents, boosters, herbs, chemical supplements." "Any one of them can set off an autoimmune response." "I found two of these in Gordon's bathroom wedged behind the sink." "Might have rolled away from him while they were on the counter." "No labeling. / Look like an aspirin." "I'll have them analyzed." "So how'd they hook up with this trainer?" "A referral by a one David Weiner." "Mexican steroids?" "That's the best theory you can come up with?" "We know about the personal trainer you hooked them up with, Mr. Weiner." "He had your boys on steroids without them knowing it." "That's ridiculous." "We do urine tests." "There's ways around those." "I've got nothing more to say to you guys." "Look... you're gonna have to tell me the truth." "Tell me before the NCAA finds out." "I had nothing but the best interests of those guys in mind." "I'm sure you did." "But right now, those two boys are sitting in the hospital." "Dave, what is it?" "It's a grand mal." "Hold on, David." "Hold on!" "Hold on!" "Those pills I found in Gordon's room... just an herbal, weight gainer." "Ineffective and harmless." "The guys knew hiring a trainer was against the rules." "At least the trainer wasn't steroid doping them." "Weiner's clean for steroids, so are Gordon and Peter." "So GHB and steroids are off the table as trigger agents." "With Weiner's MS diagnosed, containment is broken." "We still don't have any commonality between him and the other football players." "I have the team's season schedule prior to their Omaha away game, they played a scrimmage in Norfork, Nebraska." "So let's start in Norfork and work our way backwards." "Check all the hospitals in Norfork." "See if there are any seizure or spasm cases and see if any of the other players on the opposing teams are sick." "I'm on it." "Stephen, there are all a lot rumors floating around campus." "Everything from a killer flu to a new strain of mono." "Even spiked erectile function pills." "The university's starting to get cancellations for homecoming." "Less alumni, less money." "They're worried that we're gonna issue a health alert for the weekend." "That may not be a bad idea." "You ready to make that call?" "That was Dr. Salgado." "Four more Delta Theta Zeta girls were admitted with spasms. / Four more?" "See if they're strep cases, start them on antibiotics." "NORTHERN NEBRASKA UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL" "It was weird." "We were all sitting around the TV room watching that gay makeover show, then all of a sudden I just started shaking." " I felt woozy like I was gonna faint." " Me, too." "It happened a little later, though." "But it was different." "I felt like I was boiling up inside." "How much contact do you have with the other sick girls?" " Total." "They're our pledge sisters." "Can we be with them?" "They're on a different floor." "Tell them we're here for them." "Delta Theta Zeta forever." "Conversion reaction?" "We know the first two girls genuinely have strep throat." "There are signs of strep in two of the four new girls." "From what I can tell, the remaining two are perfectly healthy, except for the spasms." "Wait a minute." "You think subconsciously some of them want to be sick?" "From what I'm learning about group socialization in sororities, it makes total sense." "It's hive mentality." "The girls want so badly to be like their pledge sisters, that their minds are forcing their bodies to react." "Sympathetic hysteria." "Sort of what happened to the girls during the salem witch trials." "And in Los Angeles in the '30s." "Nurses treating polio patients came down with the symptoms themselves." "Well, until it was proved to be mass hysteria." "But something's not adding up." "I treated the four girls with strep, but they're not getting significantly better." "You think it's something other than strep?" "Possibly." "That's why I'm ordering a comprehensive blood work on all six." " Excellent." " How's David Weiner?" "Won't be able to talk to him for a few hours." "Dr. Connor, you should see this." "She was suiting up for practice when it started." "The coach was aware of the symptoms and rushed her here." "Her name is Monica Eames." "She's pre-med and volunteers here at the hospital." "I know her." "Is she in a sorority?" " No." "Any social commonalities with the football players?" " Not that I know of." " Test her for MS." "If she tests positive, she doesn't fit any established pattern of the illness, except she plays sports." "That doesn't help matters, does it?" "Actually, it does." "If we find out what's making made her ill, we'll be able to isolate what all the other patients have in common." "The hockey player tested positive for MS." "Whatever's causing this disease is right here on this campus." "So the commonality is athletes." "No, the commonality is athletics." "David Weiner was the outlier for a different reason." "He's in the sports world, but he doesn't play." "Two football players, one female hockey player and an out-of-shape athletic director." "What do they have in common?" "Whatever the commonality, we missed it, or were lead away from it." "Patients confuse events, or they tell us things that we think we want to hear." "You know those barco key cards we have at NIH?" "They track our movement throughout the facility, name, date and time." "I've seen students here with the same cards." "Yeah, David Weiner had one, too." "When I was in med school, we used to buy our meals with a key card." "Which means we can trace patients to the dining hall they ate in, what they ordered and when." "That's excellent." "Eva, there's gonna be privacy concerns in getting access to these records." "I'll make sure there aren't any." "I think I've got something." "The expanded blood work I ran on the sorority girls came back positive for mercury poisoning, for all six of them." "DELTA THETA ZETA SORORITY" "Is this gonna take long?" "That depends on you." "Mercury poisoning is very serious business." "I don't know where mercury could have come from." "Our house isn't like the rat trap houses at the other end of the row." "We had the entire building renovated just three years ago. / It's pretty." " How many actives do you have?" " 32." "How come none of them became ill?" "You're the doctor." "You tell me." " Small chapter." " We're very selective." "We only accept seven pledges a year." "There are only six girls in this photo and we only spoke with six." "We had seven." "One backed out." "Where is she?" "In the dorms where she belongs." " Is she sick?" " I wouldn't know." "Once a candidate depledges, we sever contact." "Nice." "Did she walk on her own?" "Yes, but the writing was on the wall, her attitude." "She thought she was better than us sisters." "Would you happen to remember her name?" "Rebecca Stevens." "I suppose you want her number, too." "You see a pattern?" "The number of places that we visit, the number of opportunities that we have for the chance of infection." "A water bottle, a salt shaker, doorknob." "Sometimes it all just seems hopeless." "You're quite romantic." "Look. / What do you see?" "Berkeley hall is a student dining common, right?" "Yes, they've all eaten there." "But there are five different dining halls on campus." "But David Weiner, the athletic director, only ate at that one." "We thoroughly checked Berkeley hall as part of our initial sweep." "We're gonna have to check it again." "I think this is the commonality we've been looking for." " It's not in Berkeley hall." " It has to be." "It's all they have in common." "Something in there is triggering the MS." "We've swabbed every surface, checked every food source, tested the vents, the water." "All we've found is garden-variety bacteria." "Nothing with a protein structure mimicking the nerve proteins." "What do you want to do?" "Stabilized or not, I'm gonna have a little talk with David Weiner." "If it's too loud, you're too old." "Then I'm too old." "Hi. / Hi, we're from the national institutes of health." "Oh." "Um..." "Come in." "I like the school and all, but it's like a city of 12,000 kids in the middle of nowhere." "So you need a support system, like Delta Theta Zeta." "Everybody goes greek." "If you're not in a fraternity or sorority you're just another G.D.I." "Were the pledges hazed in any way?" "Delta Theta Zeta has strict anti-hazing rules." "In any way?" "Look, Rebecca... there's nothing they can do to hurt you." "Those pledges, your friends, they need you now." "Not only do you have to be smart and popular to pass initiation, but you have to be gorgeous." "None of us wanted to be blackballed, so one of the girls had the idea to weigh ourselves every week to make sure we weren't gaining the freshman 15." "You don't look like you need to lose any weight." "First it was just a joke." "Amy bought a laser pointer to show where we were bulging." "But then we started taking it seriously." "Finally, we were outlining each other's fat with lipstick." "We all hated it, but Amy made us do it anyway." "The worst part is, we weren't allowed to wash it off until the next week." "This was all Amy Jenkins' idea?" "All the girls do whatever Amy says." "I don't know why." "She's kind of a control freak." "What kind of lipstick is this?" "I don't know." "It was thick." "I bought a whole bunch of it in Belize on vacation." "It's possible the girls were having a transference of mercury from the lipstick into their bloodstream." "But why didn't you get sick if you were all exposed to same lipstick?" "What is it?" "I was never marked." "The pledges knew the actives wanted them to have bodies like mine." "They felt so much pressure, so did I." "Do you have any of the lipstick left?" "Amy has it all." "I actually only wore it for like five minutes." "It looked terrible on me." "How you feeling?" "Like I was thrown out of a speeding car." " What happened?" " You had an episode." "It's the onset of acute malignant MS." "Are you sure?" "Yeah." "We're sure." "How could that happen?" "We think it's from something you ate or drank." "What are you talking about?" "When was the last time you ate with the students?" " I eat with students all the time." " With athletes." "Not just football players, basketball, field hockey, especially in the last week." " Athletes dinners." " What are those?" "A thank you from the university." "Each team gets a special meal at homecoming." "The works." "Where'd you have those, in the dining commons?" "Berkeley hall?" "No, not Berkeley." "Not the dining commons." "It's, uh," "Davidson house." "That didn't show up on any students' key cards." "Yeah, it wouldn't." "It's a private residence used." "Special occasions, no ID cards." "Thank you, Mr. Weiner." "Dr. Connor?" "What do I do now?" "You don't have to do anything." "We'll take care of it from here." "Do we shut down the meal?" "Not until we find out what we're looking for." "Has to be a specific agent." "Something so unique that only one or two people become ill per meal." "If it's food, which one?" "Miles... find out what's on the menu tonight, see if it differs from the other athletes dinners." "What about a beverage?" "Tea, coffee, sodas, lemonade." "No, it's too common." "With only eight percent of the population being predisposed to a disease like MS, our outbreak would have a lot more patients than just four." "You drink coffee, tea?" " Yeah, I live on it." " What do you put in it?" "Sugar, milk, artificial s weetener, honey, lemon." "We're gonna need samples, all of them." "There have been three dinners." "Different menu every meal." "Three dinners." "Three outbreaks." "A different meal with every gathering." "What's the same?" "These players are in peak condition." "They treat food as fuel." "Pure." "Healthy." "Powell, test every healthy beverage in the hall." "Every healthy beverage?" "Protein shakes, bottled water, sports drinks." "Kraft and Warren were very particular about what they put in their bodies." "That doesn't explain David Weiner." "Damn it." "What did the infected players do different?" " Either of you guys drink milk?" " I pour it on my cereal." "What about organic milk?" "I bought it once." "Expensive as hell." "You'd have to be someone who was very serious about your health." "Durant." "Natalie, there's a banquet underway, and I need an answer fast." "Call Dr. Salgado." "Have her find out if David Weiner drank organic milk at an athletes' dinner." "Wait. / His wife was nagging him about eating healthier." "Organic milk?" "Yeah." "Your organic milk." "Who's your supplier?" "We get the organic milk from our own cows, from the farm at the agriculture school." "Yeah?" " Dr. Salgado checked with Weiner." "He tried the organic milk." "That's it, we'll take the dispenser to the university lab and test it there." "Connor, what if it isn't?" "What if it's something else, or something more?" "You have a roomful of potential victims out there." "What about them?" "We have to stop those people from eating and quickly." " But without panic." " How are we gonna do that?" "The agricultural school confirmed they just began milking their cows, and that milk was first distributed to Davidson house for the athletes' dinners." "What makes these cows so special?" "Organic farms only have a handful of cows, which means small gene pools, inbreeding, recessive disorders." "All of which could cause a genetic disorder." "So you think the milk's mutated and its protein structure's causing the MS?" " I'm willing to bet on it." " How's that?" "The body's own system started attacking that mutant milk protein." "That protein mimicked the nerve structure inside their brains so their immune systems started destroying their own nerves, which lead to acute MS." "What he's trying to say is, the healthy got sick by trying to eat healthy." " That's another way of putting it." " Okay, that I get." "It's latent." "You had to have had a genetic predisposition." "But Connor is right, it's nature's roll of the dice." "So what happened with the sorority pledges?" "We got the test back on the lipstick." "Loaded with mercury." "Because of the prolonged exposure to the skin, the mercury leeched from the lipstick into the bloodstream." "The girls are on a course of treatment." "And Delta Theta Zeta national is gonna have a long talk with the chapter and Amy Jenkins regarding their priorities." "Like staying alive." "And our work is done." "Except for one thing." "I'll catch up to you." "I told you I didn't take steroids." "You were right." "My bad." "It's all good." "I've been accused of far worse." "Organic milk, huh?" "Yep." "All this time I was worried about taking a hit from the wrong angle and winding up paralyzed." "Never none of this." "How do I get better?" "Well, as soon as you get stronger, they'll start you on physical therapy." "Give yourself some time." "I can handle it." "You know how it is, you played ball." "I'm a warrior." "Yeah, but don't do this alone." "Trust me." "This is the time you need to let in the people who really care about you." "What do I do with my life if I can't play ball, doc?" "How am I supposed to deal with that?" "Well, you just said it." "You're a warrior." "See you, Gordon." "Hey, um... you want to hang around for a bit?" "Maybe you could tell me some lies about how great of a free safety you were?" "I got all the time you need." "Thank you, ma'am." "We're fine. / Okay." "All right, there was this one game." "We were playing Syracuss."