Pain Killer

Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story, and business expos, Pain Killer is a hard-hitting look at how a powerful painkiller touted as the salvation for millions became the prescription for a national tragedy. At its birth the legal narcotic OxyContin was a pharmaceutical industry dream, a 'miracle' drug that heralded a sea change in medical care and opened the door to vast drug company riches. It quickly unleashed a public health disaster of epic scope, touching off a trail of addiction and death. As tales of deadly overdoses made front-page and network news, doctors, narcotics agents, regulators, and lawmakers raced in, scrambling to slow the damage. Behind it all stood one of America's wealthiest and most secretive families and a drug company whose hunger for profit and relentless promotion helped fuel this tragedy. Written by Barry Meier, whose special report in the New York Times triggered national interest in OxyContin, Pain Killer chronicles the rise of the multi-billion-dollar pain management industry and lays bare its excesses and abuses. Meier also shows how public officials, obsessed with the war on illegal drugs, also failed to monitor the misuse of legal but equally deadly narcotics like OxyContin and are ill-prepared to prevent future catastrophes.