Sandbox / Medication Tampering Wick Check

Here a wick check will be performed for Medication Tampering.

Why?: A Trope Talk thread indicated that this trope may be overly strict—while the definition requires that the tampering lead to death, some examples may be of tampering leading to illness or paralyzation.

Wicks checked: 50/50

Wick totals:

• 28/50 examples had the medication tampering lead to death, or 56%,
• 12/50 examples had the tampering lead to illness or paralyzation, or 24%,
• 1/50 examples were of other use, or 2%,
• 8/50 examples were zero- or partial-context or unclear, or 16%, and
• 1/50 examples were unclassifiable, or 2%

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Tampering leads to death (28/50)

1. CSINY.Tropes M To Z:
   • In 'Blood Actually,' the killer swaps a diabetic victim's insulin for sugar syrup, so that when he goes to inject himself with insulin, he is in fact shooting up more sugar.
   • In 'Time's Up,' a college student has her asthma inhaler switched for a drug that enhances sexual arousal, causing her to suffer a fatal asthma attack while orgasming. Tampering leads to death.
2. ComicBook.Blacksad: In A Silent Hell Sebastian's heroin dealer is being paid by a man dressed as this world's version of the Grim Reaper to give Sebastian his own heroin. The dealer confesses to Blacksad that Sebastian is likely not gonna survive, likening the dope to rat poison. Weekly finds Sebastian's trail but Blacksad arrives too late to stop him from injecting himself. Tampering will eventually lead to death.
3. Series.My Life Is Murder: In "Mirror Mirror", the murderer laces the lidocaine cream being used on the Victim of the Week's chest for a minor cosmetic procedure with barbiturates. This knocks the victim out several hours later and the killer force feeds her more barbiturates and then injects her with a fatal dose of botulinum toxin to make it look like a case of self-medication gone wrong. Tampering eventually leads to death.
4. VideoGame.Hitman 2:
   • 47 can poison Robert Knox's eye drops so that if he uses them, he'll poison himself in his bathroom.
   • A number of NPCs mention that Sierra Knox routinely gets an IV infusion after races; naturally, 47 can impersonate her doctor and poison her IV bag. Death is implied.
5. Recap.Haven S 1 E 8 Aint No Sunshine: Rand and Wilson were withholding chemotherapy medication and selling it to other clinics, which led to the rapid death of Thornton's wife. This starts his Trouble, which proceeds to exact fatal retribution, although he does not appear to be aware that his shadow is actually killing people. Leads to death.
6. Literature.The Narrows: As an elaborate form of suicide. Terry McCaleb tampered with his own heart medication instead of submitting to a second heart transplant. Tampering leads to death.
7. Film.A Blueprint For Murder: Lynne tampers with Polly's calcium pills to ensure that she receives a second fatal dose of strychnine while she is in the hospital. Tampering leads to death.
8. BlackmailBackfire.Literature: In The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, one character is shown trying blackmail on several others. One of them responds lethally via Medication Tampering. Tampering leads to death.
9. Make It Look Like an Accident:
   • This is G.J. Smith's primary advice to Jodie in Deadly Advice; explaining how he drowned his wives in the bath in such a way to avoid suspicion. It is on his suggestion that she tampers with her sister's heart meds to weaken her heart further.
   • This is the preferred method of the killer in Agatha Christie's Murder is Easy, which is where the title comes from. Four people have died at the beginning of the novel, and there has been little investigation into the matter since all the deaths seemed to be accidents, like a boy "falling" out of a window and a woman drinking paint that she "mistook" for medicine. The plot begins when a woman suspects that something fishy is going on, but is then "accidentally" hit by a car on her way to the police. The killer turns out to be an insane Woman Scorned who kills anyone who is unfriendly to her former lover, hoping that the police will eventually catch up and arrest him for the murders. Both examples imply murder.
10. Series.Clan: One attempt involved adding Rohypnol to Jean-Claude’s nasal spray to knock him off. Tampering leads to death.
11. Literature.Edenborn: Penny swaps Hessa's meds as a prank with lethal consequences. Tampering leads to death.
12. Characters.Infinite Jest: His heroin is occasionally laced with lethal adulterants. Tampering can lead to death.
13. Locked Room Mystery: In Jon Sable, Freelance 44-45, Jon is present is on board a yacht when a movie star seemingly commits suicide inside his locked cabin. Of course, it is Never Suicide, and Jon turns detective to work out what really happened. The victim had been given poisoned Dramamine by his murderer which he took inside his cabin and died. A second person, looking to protect the killer, had used a bang stick to fire a bullet into the victim's head through the portal, hoping the police would not check for poison when there was an obvious gunshot wound to the head. Tampering leads to death.
14. Recap.The Kindaichi Case Files Jail Gate Cram School Murder Case: What happens to Shuji. He has to inject himself with a medicine everyday because of his weak heart. However, people jealous of him spread rumor of him using drugs and then convince a student who has a crush of him to swap the medicine vial with water to "save him." Of course, he dies. Tampering leads to death.
15. Fanfic.Moving On Sherlock Holmes: Anne's uncle died because his medication was sabotaged. Tampering leads to death.
16. Film.Trash Fire: Violet sabotages Owen's epilepsy medication, eventually causing him to collapse. Tampering seems to lead to death.
17. Manga.Case Closed: Lotsa People Try to Dun It: One case plays out like this when an actor is found dead at the theater where he worked. The three other actors each confess to killing him by smashing a vase over his head, with forensics finding skin particles from the victim on each of the three vases. However, the autopsy revealed the head wounds were not serious enough to kill him. His real cause of death was heart failure due to his wife swapping his heart medication with stomach medication. Tampering leads to death.
18. Series.Death In Paradise:
    • In "Death in the Clinic", the killer swaps the Victim of the Week's pain medication with a dose of botox strong enough to paralyze her lungs and cause her to suffocate.
    • In "Hidden Secrets", a doctor diagnoses his friend as suffering an incurable degenerative nerve disease, as part of a plot to drive him to suicide. The drugs his supplies him to 'treat' the condition are actually antipsychotics that will simulate the symptoms of degenerative nerve damage.
    • In "Painkiller Thriller" it turned out that the killer that replaced the Victim of the Week's natural supplements with aspirin, which the victim was allergic to, and then tried to make it look like the care assistant that cocked up the medication round by giving the victim the wrong tablet. Tampering leads to death.
19. VisualNovel.Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trials And Tribulations: Dahlia Hawthorne poisons Phoenix's cold medicine so that she can retrieve a necklace she used for a past poisoning. However, she abandons that plan after deciding that another man needed to be killed off more than Phoenix and the poisoned cold medicine ends up being the decisive evidence that proves her guilt. Attempted killing through tampering.
20. Recap.CSINYS 09 E 16: A diabetic victim's insulin is swapped out for sugar water. Death through tampering.
21. Literature.Hayley Powell Food And Cocktails Mysteries: In book 4 (Death of a Chocoholic), it's revealed that this is how Marla killed Bessie Winthrop, by switching out Bessie's blood thinner medicine with Marla's own blood clotting medicine. Death through tampering.
22. Recap.Midsomer Murders Wrote S 1 E 4: Guy Gamelin is killed when the murderer deliberately withholds his heart medication as he is suffering a heart attack. Tampering leads to death.
23. Series.Tales Of The Unexpected: In "Force of Evil", the doctor attempts to kill the psychopath who is stalking his family by poisoning the stalker's insulin. Attempted killing through tampering.
24. Manga.Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Phantom Blood: Dio Brando elects to take his adoptive father's medicine up to him since the servant is old and prefers not to use the stairs. Dio uses this opportunity to switch out George Joestar's medicine for a similar-looking and hard-to-detect poison he purchased from a Chinese merchant. It fails when Jonathan Joestar realizes that Dio's father died with the same symptoms, implying Dio had used the same trick on his own father, although he ends up killing him in another fashion anyway. Attempted killing through tampering.
25. Recap.Better Call Saul S 3 E 8 Slip: This is Nacho's plan to assassinate Hector. He fills up empty but identical pill casings with ibuprofen (not safe for those with cardiovascular problems), then steals Hector's pill bottle and swaps out the real medicine for his fakes. Attempted killing through tampering.
26. Series.The Doctor Blake Mysteries: In "King of the Lake", the murderer substitutes the Victim of the Week's heart medication for similar looking slimming pills; knowing that when he is thrown into the lake as happens at the end of every rowing race, the sudden immersion in cold water will trigger a fatal heart attack. Attempted killing through tampering.
27. Series.Agatha Raisin: The Victim of the Week in "Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham" is murdered by the killer injecting ricin into his vitamin tablets. Killing through tampering.
28. Franchise.Hercule Poirot: In Dumb Witness, the victim’s liver pills are doctored with phosphorus. The hint is given by the ‘aura’ seen around the woman: the phosphorescence of her breath. Killing through tampering.

Tampering leads to illness or paralyzation (12/50)

1. Film.Repo The Genetic Opera: Played for Drama and Inverted. Ill child Shilo is kept homebound due to a rare blood condition, which she takes daily medication for. In the finale, it is revealed that Shilo's father has been poisoning her with the "medicine," which causes her to exhibit the symptoms of her vague illness; she is completely healthy when not taking it. Tampering leads to illness.
2. Recap.Tales From The Crypt S 4 E 2 Thisll Kill Ya: Pack and Sophie put something in George's insulin to make him sick, as their way of teaching him a lesson for his behavior. Tampering leads to illness.
3. Literature.The Murder At The Vicarage: Lawrence switches Hawes' medication with a poison, nearly killing him. Tampering leads to illness.
4. Series.CSI Miami: "Paint it Black" features an artist who pays an accomplice to replace the contents of his protege's anti-psychotic medication with sugar, believing that it is her mental condition that makes her brilliant. However, the medication causes her to suffer a psychotic break and murder her roommate. Tampering leads to illness.
5. YMMV.Ultra Seven X: Complete Monster: Peginera ("Parasitic Space Creature"), from episode 4 ""DIAMOND "S"", is one of the worst alien invaders ever investigated by DEUS. Desiring to adapt to Earth's atmosphere with a new body that would allow it to conquer the planet, Peginera splits its own cells into countless parasites and takes over the entire staff of Nano Cybertech, tainting their most popular product with its cells to infect thousands more, even children. Those who refused to submit to the Hive Mind have their bodies turned into mummified husks, with Peginera itself coldly seeing this horrible demise as a form of punishment. A sadistic, cruel being that managed to stand out in one of the darkest installments of the franchise, Peginera wasted no time in causing destruction once it finally got a body. Tampering leads to illness.
6. Funny.MASH: The conversation is interrupted by Potter screaming "Sweet Mother Macree! I think I'm gonna die!" They race over to his tent, where he says he was brushing his teeth and suddenly bubbles started coming out of his nose; Charles sniffs his toothpaste and shaving cream tubes and says someone has spiked the former with the latter. Potter takes it in stride, then says he needs a volunteer to swap places with a doctor at the 8063rd; Charles volunteers to get "out of the line of seltzer fire". Later, in the Post Op Ward, Victim #3 enters in a rage... Tampering leads to illness.
7. Characters.The Ravens Plan: His "medicine" was actually poison made by Lysa and Littlefinger's pet maester to make him reliant on them. Tampering seems to lead to illness.
8. LawAndOrderSVU.Tropes G To P: In "Conned", the team discovers that a doctor intentionally faked a teenager's schizophrenia diagnosis, including using medication to induce symptoms, because she was having an illicit sexual relationship with him. Tampering appears to lead to illness.
9. Characters.The Solve It Squad Returns: Few doctors would be okay with using the term "medication", but Scrags replacing Esther's drug stash with placebos is a positively-intentioned version of this trope, essentially forcing Esther to go cold turkey without realizing it. Tampering leads to illness (of sorts).
10. MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot.Live Action TV: In one SVU episode, a schizophrenic man kidnaps a child after mistaking the boy for his own estranged son and kills the man who tries to stop him. The detectives ultimately determine that the group home he had been living at was corrupt and their negligence had led to the death of another resident, which they attempted to pass off as a suicide; the man had witnessed this, so the group home had intentonally messed with the man's treatment so that his symptoms would return and he wouldn't be taken seriously if he tried to report what he saw. Tampering leads to illness.
11. Series.Ugly Betty: A non-fatal version; Wilhelmina has Marc swap her sister's anti-psychotic meds with useless ones so she'll become mentally unstable and Wilhelmina can have her committed to an asylum. Tampering leads to illness.
12. Literature.The Red Vixen Adventures: In Shadow of Doubt someone spikes Alinadar's medication with cleaning solvent. It causes massive damage to her veins and starts to reach her heart before the paramedics manage to stop it. Even then she needs cellular rejuvenation therapy to survive. Tampering leads to illness.

Other use (1/50)

1. Film.Spiderhead: Could be considered the premise of the entire movie. Most notably, Mark does this to Steve by giving Jeff access to his drug injection remote and giving him vials of various drugs he wouldn't normally have in his pack, including the brainwashing drug they've been testing all along. Based on context, tampering leads to effects other than death, illness, or paralyzation.

ZCEs and unclear (8/50)

1. Funny.Hololive Non Game Group Streams: During an off-collab stream with Coco, Kanata and Haachama, they discuss the terms of a forfeit for a Japanese Language Skills contest between Coco and Haachama. Both winning and losing result in Coco eating Haachama's cooking. Coco instructs Kanata to preemptively book an appointment at the hospital, just in case. Haachama warns, however, that there is no escape and she will tamper with any medication given to Coco during any hospitalisation episode, much to Coco and Kanata's concern. Unclear on effects of tampering.
2. Series.Murder She Wrote: In "Angel of Death", a playwright has his sedatives swapped for powerful anti-depressives as part of a Gaslighting scheme. Partial context, doesn't explain what the tampering did.
3. VideoGame.Dishonored: In an early-game side mission, the player can agree to work for Granny Rags, poisoning an elixir still used by Slackjaw's Bottle Street Gang with rat viscera. Partial context, doesn't explain what the tampering does.
4. Recap.Only Fools And Horses S 4 E 05 Sleeping Dogs Lie: A mild and unintentional example. Duke's vitamin tablets and Uncle Albert's sleeping pills are in very similar bottles, and Rodney got the two mixed up. No mention of what the tampering does.
5. PlayingWith.What You Are In The Dark Straight: Long-distance runner Bob is given the chance to put one over on Alice without anyone knowing by emptying her inhaler before a race. Unclear.
6. Recap.Tales From The Crypt S 3 E 7 The Reluctant Vampire: Whenever Donald drinks blood during his shift, he alters the blood bank's records to cover his tracks. He soon realizes that Crosswhite may be onto him when he discovers the records have been taken from their shelf. Unclear on effects of tampering.
7. Series.Gotham: The father of Oswald Cobblepot explains to him that he has a heart condition, a hole in his heart that does not seems to resolve itself despite the medication he takes. His wife brings him the medication as he is explaining that, and after leaving the room takes the exact same white "pill" from a mints box and eats it. Unclear on effects of tampering.
8. Recap.Nightmare Time S 2 E 1 Honey Queen: Sam does this to Mima, by changing the dosage of medications in her file. No context.

Unclassifiable (1/50)

1. ImageSource.Other Media Index.