Patient zero -- The poison squad -- Enter the Feds -- The wonder drug -- "Could you patent the sun?" -- An unlikely trio -- A one-atom difference -- A "Jewish kid from Brooklyn" -- Medicine Avenue -- The hard sell blitz -- A haven for communists -- The puppet master -- Fake doctors -- A "Sackler empire" -- "Be happy" pills -- "The therapeutic jungle" -- "Paint the worst possible picture" -- Thalidomide to the rescue -- The $100 million drug -- Legal but somehow "shifty" -- Targeting women -- Death with dignity -- "Go-go Goddard" -- "Here, eat this root" -- "They clean their own cages" -- "Splashdown!" -- "Tell him his lawyer is calling" -- A new definition of Blockbuster -- "Kiss the ring" -- The temple of Dendur -- "Valiumania" -- Swine flu -- "Black River" -- "Everything can be abused" -- The age of biotech -- A "gay cancer" -- "None of the public's damned business" -- A pain management revolution -- Enter generics -- Selling hearts and minds -- "No one likes airing dirty laundry in public" -- "The sales department on steroids" -- "$$$$$$$$$$$$$ it's Bonus time in the neighborhood" -- Talking stomachs and dead presidents -- "We have to hammer on the abusers" -- "Giving Purdue a free pass" -- "You messed with the wrong mother" -- Profits and corpses -- Gaming the system -- Billion-dollar orphans -- The coming pandemic -- "Essentially a crime family"
Summary:
"Pharmaceutical breakthroughs such as antibiotics and vaccines rank among some of the greatest advancements in human history. Yet exorbitant prices for life-saving drugs, safety recalls affecting tens of millions of Americans, and soaring rates of addiction and overdose on prescription opioids have caused many to lose faith in drug companies. Now, Americans are demanding a national reckoning with a monolithic industry. Pharma introduces brilliant scientists, in-corruptible government regulators, and brave whistleblowers facing off against company executives often blinded by greed. A business that profits from treating ills can create far deadlier problems than it cures. Addictive products are part of the industry's DNA, from the days when corner drugstores sold morphine, heroin, and cocaine, to the past two decades of dangerously overprescribed opioids. Pharma also uncovers the real story of the Sacklers, the family that became one of America's wealthiest from the success of OxyContin, their blockbuster narcotic painkiller at the center of the opioid crisis. Relying on thousands of pages of government and corporate archives, dozens of hours of interviews with insiders, and previously classified FBI files, Posner exposes the secrets of the Sacklers' rise to power--revelations that have long been buried under a byzantine web of interlocking companies with ever-changing names and hidden owners. The unexpected twists and turns of the Sackler family saga are told against the startling chronicle of a powerful industry that sits at the intersection of public health and profits. Pharma reveals how and why American drug companies have put earnings ahead of patients." -- Publisher's description
