American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts

by Chris McGreal Narrated by Dan Woren

Overview

A comprehensive portrait of a uniquely American epidemic -- devastating in its findings and damning in its conclusions

The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers.

Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it.

The starting point for McGreal's deeply reported investigation is the miners promised that opioid painkillers would restore their wrecked bodies, but who became targets of "drug dealers in white coats."

A few heroic physicians warned of impending disaster. But American Overdose exposes the powerful forces they were up against, including the pharmaceutical industry's coopting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive to push painkillers -- resulting in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland. McGreal tells the story, in terms both broad and intimate, of people hit by a catastrophe they never saw coming. Years in the making, its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future.

Editorial Reviews

JANUARY 2019 - AudioFile

Dan Woren's forthright narrating style is the perfect vehicle for this compelling portrayal of the genesis and consequences of America's current opioid crisis. Although the topic has recently received much attention, McGreal's text achieves a unique level of immediacy by combining scientific and historical content with anecdotal accounts of the heartbreaking devastation caused by these drugs. Woren's even tone carries a hint of suppressed emotion as McGreal identifies the malefactors and details how Big Pharma's outrageous greed, coupled with unscrupulous doctors and an incompetent government, is inflicting addiction, suffering, and death on some of our most vulnerable citizens. Woren's masterful presentation enhances listener accessibility to this powerful analysis of a grave social problem. M.O.B. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 09/24/2018
The U.S.’s opioid epidemic stems from slippery medical and corporate ethics, shoddy research, and lax government oversight, journalist McGreal reveals in his incisive debut. Opening with the story of a shady undertaker-turned-pill-purveyor, McGreal takes the reader into clinics that churned out prescriptions for painkillers like assembly-line widgets, rarely requiring follow-up appointments or other checks on patient progress when issuing refills. He tells tales of individuals whose quest for pain relief turned them into addicts and often took their lives, leaving heartbroken family and friends behind and sending thousands of children into foster care. He writes that classism played a role in the reluctance of the FDA to address the crisis; many victims came from low-income areas such as rural West Virginia, and OxyContin became known as “hillbilly heroin.” Finally, the book describes in detail how lobbyists for both the pharmaceutical industry and in some cases the medical establishment, who were profiting greatly from the dangerous drugs, thwarted early efforts, in the first years of the 21st century, by doctors and others to sound the alarm to Purdue (OxyContin’s manufacturer), the FDA, and the medical establishment. This urgent, readable chronicle, which names names and pulls no punches, clearly and compassionately illuminates the evolution of America’s mass addiction problem. Agent: Zoe Pagnamenta, the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency. (Nov.)

From the Publisher

"American Overdoseconfirms Chris McGreal's stature as one of the truly essential reporters of our times. It is - in its investigative depth and documentary breadth - a riveting and urgent reckoning of colossal corruption that has taken such a staggering toll on twenty-first century American life."
—Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families

"In this gripping account, McGreal exposes the avarice and corruption that caused one of the most shocking crises in American history. A searing expose full of extraordinary characters - heroes, villains and victims."—Katty Kay, contributor MSNBC Morning Joe, presenter BBC World News America

"McGreal shows how the overdose crisis was driven by the pursuit of profits, not just drugs-both of which combine our instinctive craving for pleasure with our evolving capacity for denial and deceit. Fascinating, disturbing, impressively researched and elegantly written."—Marc Lewis, author of The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is Not a Disease

"With great reporting and compelling storytelling, American Overdose lays bare the tragedy of the opioid epidemic tearing at the soul of the United States. Those who want to understand the issue of narcotics and addiction have to read it."—Ioan Grillo, author of El Narco

"A deftly researched account of America's opioid epidemic. McGreal's book is authoritative in tone and vernacular in style....[A] powerful narrative."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"This urgent, readable chronicle, which names names and pulls no punches, clearly and compassionately illuminates the evolution of America's mass addiction problem."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"McGreal, an award-winning journalist, presents this grim cautionary tale of opioids, greed, and addiction in three acts: 'Dealing,' 'Hooked,' and Withdrawal'.... McGreal goes on to successfully address the question of how the greatest drug epidemic in history grew largely unchecked for nearly two decades....What can be done to reverse this? McGreal's powerfully stated indictment is a start."—Booklist, Starred Review

"Thorough, gripping and excellent."——The Straight Dope, Medium.com

"[A] powerful encapsulation of that epidemic....a timely examination of hard-won lessons."—Nature

"Staggering... Zola-esque in its dark twists and turns."—Ed Vulliamy, LiteraryReview

"[A] searing book... Appalachian accents and anger steam off the page."—TheSunday Times

"Compelling.... reads like a white-collar The Wire, with a cast of characters determined to exact as much money as possible regardless of the human cost."—The Observer

"An engaging, cogently argued book."—Evening Standard

"Astonishing... McGreal's book is forensic in its detailing and turns up some eye-popping examples."—Esquire UK

"McGreal provides a scorching exposé....Most important, American Overdose tells the story of institutional failure and corruption: among local officials, in federal agencies, the United States Congress, and the White House."—Psychology Todayonline

"Vivid reporting... [McGreal] explains in horrifying detail how this vision of a pain-free America - pharmacologically unrealistic to begin with - was subverted by a greedy combination of pharmaceutical companies, drug distributors, doctors and pharmacists, aided and abetted by complacent regulators and politicians."—Financial Times

"In American Overdose Chris McGreal of the Guardian looks unsparingly at the causes of the opioid crisis that kills tens of thousands of Americans a year."—The Economist

"A fast, accessible read for those trying to come to terms with a national nightmare."—Law & Crime

"An exposé that will have readers riveted from cover to cover."—GreenBay Press Gazette

"[A] powerful account ... American Overdose is a tale of bad decision making, greed and malfeasance that is still unfolding, and not one about which we can afford to be complacent."—Nick Hopkinson, British Medical Journal

"A detailed view of the corruption that enabled the spread of opiates to go unchecked by the healthcare industry, government or law enforcement."—London Review ofBooks

JANUARY 2019 - AudioFile

Dan Woren's forthright narrating style is the perfect vehicle for this compelling portrayal of the genesis and consequences of America's current opioid crisis. Although the topic has recently received much attention, McGreal's text achieves a unique level of immediacy by combining scientific and historical content with anecdotal accounts of the heartbreaking devastation caused by these drugs. Woren's even tone carries a hint of suppressed emotion as McGreal identifies the malefactors and details how Big Pharma's outrageous greed, coupled with unscrupulous doctors and an incompetent government, is inflicting addiction, suffering, and death on some of our most vulnerable citizens. Woren's masterful presentation enhances listener accessibility to this powerful analysis of a grave social problem. M.O.B. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2018-09-25

A deftly researched account of America's opioid epidemic.

Guardian reporter McGreal's book is authoritative in tone and vernacular in style. He introduces us to the voices of the epidemic—users, suppliers, family members, and others—but also to its antecedents in both medicine and drug policy. "At the time," he writes, describing the 1970s, "American doctors regarded morphine with suspicion to the point of hostility. Whatever its qualities as a painkiller, it was regarded as so addictive and life destroying that the medical profession refused to countenance its use even for the dying." The author's powerful narrative has deep roots in history. In 1908, Theodore Roosevelt appointed the United States' first opium commissioner, "who described Americans as ‘the greatest drugs fiends in the world.' " Then, in the 1980s, doctors began to look at the benefits of opioids in palliative care. Many of those physicians were "cavalier" in their research; some of the most disturbing testimony here comes from them, especially juxtaposed against the families that have been destroyed. The real villains, though, are the pharmaceutical companies—especially OxyContin manufacturer Purdue—and the doctors and politicians who abet them. At one point, McGreal cites a West Virginia legislator who, in the early 2000s, told the state attorney general that "one of the federal prisons was having to send a bus to pick up guards out of state because it couldn't find enough people locally who could pass a drug test." Even so, drug lobbyists did their best to shut down regulations. By 2009, "prescription opioid deaths…[were] three times the number of a decade earlier." The numbers are staggering, and the author doesn't offer a lot of hope for change. "What's going on now is a maturing of the epidemic," a former Food and Drug Administration official reports. "People are addicted, and that means they're going to keep needing it. It's going to be years that they stay on it until they finally get over it. If they don't get killed."

A well-rendered, harrowing book about dire circumstances.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173483621
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	11/13/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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