Table of Contents
Preface ix
1 Patient Zero 1
2 The Poison Squad 5
3 Enter the Feds 15
4 The Wonder Drug 25
5 "Could You Patent the Sun?" 40
6 An Unlikely Trio 47
7 A One-Atom Difference 58
8 A "Jewish Kid from Brooklyn" 65
9 Medicine Avenue 79
10 The Hard Sell Blitz 88
11 A Haven for Communists 97
12 The Puppet Master 110
13 Fake Doctors 117
14 A "Sackler Empire" 127
15 "Be Happy" Pills 139
16 "The Therapeutic Jungle" 158
17 "Paint the Worst Possible Picture" 165
18 Thalidomide to the Rescue 174
19 The $100 Million Drug 184
20 Legal but Somehow "Shifty" 191
21 Targeting Women 199
22 Death with Dignity 210
23 "Go-Go Goddard" 218
24 "Here, Eat This Root" 230
25 "They Clean Their Own Cages" 234
26 "Splashdown!" 247
27 "Tell Him His Lawyer Is Calling" 253
28 A New Definition of Blockbuster 262
29 "Kiss the Ring" 270
30 The Temple of Dendur 276
31 "Valiumania" 285
32 Swine Flu 294
33 "Black River" 310
34 "Everything Can Be Abused" 323
35 The Age of Biotech 330
36 A "Gay Cancer" 339
37 "None of the Publics Damned Business" 356
38 A Pain Management Revolution 360
39 Enter Generics 369
40 Selling Hearts and Minds 383
41 "No One Likes Airing Dirty Laundry in Public" 395
42 "The Sales Department on Steroids" 403
43 "$$$$$$$$$$$$$ It's Bonus Time in the Neighborhood!" 415
44 Talking Stomachs and Dead Presidents 422
45 "We Have to Hammer on the Abusers" 435
46 "Giving Purdue a Free Pass" 451
47 "You Messed with the Wrong Mother" 463
48 Profits and Corpses 477
49 Gaming the System 492
50 Billion-Dollar Orphans 502
51 The Coming Pandemic 517
52 "Essentially a Crime Family" 522
Acknowledgments 535
Bibliography 541
Notes 575
Index 765