Chapter 172: Translation
At this point, the government had fully taken control of Rakucho Pharmaceutical—this included its U.S. branch as well as its headquarters in Japan.
In the company’s name, they issued a public announcement stating that the SSU white pills currently on the market had serious defects. They urgently recalled all sold white pills from pharmacies and consumers. At the same time, consumers who had already taken the white pills could, with proof of purchase, buy the black pills at half price to expel the nanomachines from their bodies.
After releasing the notice, perhaps worried that some people might be reluctant to give up the weight-loss effects of the pills and refuse to take the black pills, Rakucho Pharmaceutical also removed the pink pills from sale. At present, only the black pills remain available for purchase on the official website.
It was already well known what would happen if the intake of pink pills was interrupted during use. Artificially reducing the supply of pink pills not only led to a surge in scalpers reselling them at inflated prices, but also forced some financially struggling individuals to take the black pills earlier, thereby reducing the number of hosts for the tapeworm.
Even so, there were still plenty of people unwilling to take the black pills. With limited resources, the U.S. government could not personally warn each of these individuals, so they occasionally fabricated shocking news stories to scare the public, hoping to persuade them to come to their senses. If some still refused to listen, then so be it—after all, as a nation of immigrants, the United States was not short on people.
All of these measures were aimed at cutting off the source of the parasite.
In addition, the U.S. government implemented several other measures simultaneously.
Anyone paying attention to gathering information would notice that during this period, major government agencies had all become extremely busy:
The Environmental Protection Agency, under the banner of “eliminating pollutants and purifying freshwater systems,” began deploying insecticides on a large scale in urban sewer systems and natural bodies of water. The Food and Drug Administration, the Food Safety Inspection Bureau, and various state health departments jointly issued a series of laws, regulations, and guidelines, strictly regulating the sale of raw food in commercial establishments such as cafeterias and restaurants. The Department of Health and Human Services released directives requiring hospitals of all sizes across the United States to stock a batch of special medication. Pharmacists and doctors would receive online training, and when patients met certain criteria, they would be required to prescribe these black special-effect pills…