Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic

This is the origin story of the opioid epidemic, one of the biggest health crises facing our nation, written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Barry Meier. An eye-opening account implicating not only OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, but also the FDA.

Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 300,000 Americans died from opioid-related overdoses, a plague ignited by the aggressive marketing of prescription pain killer OxyContin.
     Owned by the closely-guarded Sackler family, Purdue Pharma had the information necessary to slow the sale of the drug in 2006. But in 2008, the FDA struck a plea deal with Purdue, allowing the drug company to continue its aggressive campaign to sell OxyContin even as they concealed reports of the havoc wreaked by the drug.
     First published in 2003, in this thoroughly updated edition, Meier—the first journalist to shed a national spotlight on the abuse of OxyContin—reveals new and shocking information about what the drug's maker and the FDA really knew about its dangers and adds new reporting implicating the FDA in opioid deaths for the past decade.
     Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story, and business exposé, Pain Killer is the opioid crisis origin story, a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug set off a national tragedy.