Pharma

Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America

Gerald Posner

• Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781501152030
• eBook ISBN:
  9781501152047
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business History
• Index: Business

Award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Gerald Posner reveals the heroes and villains of the trillion-dollar-a-year pharmaceutical industry and delivers “a withering and encyclopedic indictment of a drug industry that often seems to prioritize profits over patients” (The New York Times Book Review).

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.

Gerald Posner’s “dogged reporting sets Pharma apart from all books on this subject” (The Washington Standard) as we are introduced to brilliant scientists, incorruptible 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. “Explosively, even addictively, readable” (Booklist, starred review), Pharma reveals how and why American drug com­panies have put earnings ahead of patients.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Patient Zero
• Chapter 2: The Poison Squad
• Chapter 3: Enter the Feds
• Chapter 4: The Wonder Drug
• Chapter 5: “Could You Patent the Sun?”
• Chapter 6: An Unlikely Trio
• Chapter 7: A One-Atom Difference
• Chapter 8: A “Jewish Kid from Brooklyn”
• Chapter 9: Medicine Avenue
• Chapter 10: The Hard Sell Blitz
• Chapter 11: A Haven for Communists
• Chapter 12: The Puppet Master
• Chapter 13: Fake Doctors
• Chapter 14: A “Sackler Empire”
• Chapter 15: “Be Happy” Pills
• Chapter 16: “The Therapeutic Jungle”
• Chapter 17: “Paint the Worst Possible Picture”
• Chapter 18: Thalidomide to the Rescue
• Chapter 19: The $100 Million Drug
• Chapter 20: Legal but Somehow “Shifty”
• Chapter 21: Targeting Women
• Chapter 22: Death with Dignity
• Chapter 23: “Go-Go Goddard”
• Chapter 24: “Here, Eat This Root”
• Chapter 25: “They Clean Their Own Cages”
• Chapter 26: “Splashdown!”
• Chapter 27: “Tell Him His Lawyer Is Calling”
• Chapter 28: A New Definition of Blockbuster
• Chapter 29: “Kiss the Ring”
• Chapter 30: The Temple of Dendur
• Chapter 31: “Valiumania”
• Chapter 32: Swine Flu
• Chapter 33: “Black River”
• Chapter 34: “Everything Can Be Abused”
• Chapter 35: The Age of Biotech
• Chapter 36: A “Gay Cancer”
• Chapter 37: “None of the Public’s Damned Business”
• Chapter 38: A Pain Management Revolution
• Chapter 39: Enter Generics
• Chapter 40: Selling Hearts and Minds
• Chapter 41: “No One Likes Airing Dirty Laundry in Public”
• Chapter 42: “The Sales Department on Steroids”
• Chapter 43: “$$$$$$$$$$$$$ It’s Bonus Time in the Neighborhood!”
• Chapter 44: Talking Stomachs and Dead Presidents
• Chapter 45: “We Have to Hammer on the Abusers”
• Chapter 46: “Giving Purdue a Free Pass”
• Chapter 47: “You Messed with the Wrong Mother”
• Chapter 48: Profits and Corpses
• Chapter 49: Gaming the System
• Chapter 50: Billion-Dollar Orphans
• Chapter 51: The Coming Pandemic
• Chapter 52: “Essentially a Crime Family”
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Index
• Copyright