Pain Killer: A "Wonder" Drug's Trail of Addiction and Death (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "LATE ON A JANUARY night in 2000, the telephone rang in the bedroom of a country doctor named Art Van Zee..." (more)
Key Phrases: pain management movement, narcotics advocates, diversion office, Van Zee, Lee County, Sue Ella (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Investigative reporter Meier explores the troubling issues raised by the powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin, which touched off what many saw as an epidemic of addiction and crime, especially in Appalachia, where the drug became known as "hillbilly heroin.". At one level, Meier's story is a public health quandary pitting the interests of patients and their advocates in the "pain management movement"-which urges the increased use of strong opiates like OxyContin to help cancer patients and other victims of chronic pain-against the irrepressible urge of bored teenagers to abuse anything that will get them high. But it's also a cautionary tale about the corrupting influence of the profit motive on medicine. According to Meier, Purdue, the pharmaceutical company that makes the drug, touted it as a less addictive alternative to other formulations, then dragged its feet on restricting the drug when reports of addiction and illicit dealing began to come in-sometimes from its own salespeople. Meanwhile, Purdue launched a massive promotional campaign, complete with lavish ads, company-sponsored medical associations and physician-spokesmen, to convince doctors to prescribe OxyContin even for minor bouts of pain, thus fueling the drug's availability on the street. Meier combines a well-researched account of the medical controversy surrounding OxyContin with affecting reportage on one of its victims, a high school cheerleader whose life went into a tailspin once she encountered the drug. His book is an absorbing indictment of the modern health-care marketing industry, which, as depicted here, has blurred the line between medical "education" and shilling.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books; 1 edition (October 17, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579546382
• ISBN-13: 978-1579546380
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #173,519 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Clearly a one-sided view replayed over and over and over...., January 23, 2005

By	KO "ChronicPainPatient" (Chandler, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

I have read and heard so many negative things about Oxycontin that I can't keep silent about this any longer! I am a chronic pain patient who was on Oxycontin for many years. I also participated in one of their early drug trials for chronic pain, so I have personally contributed input to Purdue about how this medicine affected my body and mind. It was truly a lifesaver for me at the time, as it allowed me to return to work on a full-time basis. (When I say full-time, I REALLY mean FULL-TIME! I had two full-time 40 hr./week jobs plus I designed a bi-monthly magazine on a free-lance basis. I have several inoperable conditions which cause me to suffer constant, intractable pain on a daily basis.

I tried all natural alternatives such as chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, meditation, herbal diets and others for several years before finally applying to Purdue's clinical trial for chronic back pain, in which Oxycontin was being used for pain relief. By the time I started the trial I could hardly sit in my office chair for more than 15 minutes. I had tried other medications new to the market at the time including Trazadone, which put my heart into severe arrhythmia for days after taking only one dose. Other drugs had intolerable side effects; Oxycontin did not. Instead, I received a steady dosage of pain relief medication which did not make me 'high', sleepy nor nauseated. I was overjoyed to have my quality of life returned to me!

After being in the 3-year clinical trial for a year and a half, I was told that the trial was being suddenly halted due to the bad press that Oxycontin was receiving. The company which handled the clinical trial for Purdue did not want to be involved so they just dropped all participants, leaving us with only a few pills on hand and no referral to a pain management doctor, as they had initially promised. I was fortunate to find a doctor at the 11th hour who would accept me as a pain patient.

Without getting into all the details of 'life afterwards', it should suffice for me to mention that Oxycontin can be a worthwhile and helpful drug in the hands of a chronic pain patient. A person in pain does NOT get 'high' from opiates. Instead, the medicine is used up by the pain receptors in the brain and never reaches the 'pleasure centers'. Pain patients feel ONLY RELIEF FROM PAIN.

I sincerely wish this bad press would stop as it is doing a great injustice to the chronic pain patient. If a person wants to get 'high', they can take Oxycontin or they can take a slew of other drugs OR they can simply turn to alcohol, which is not only legal but is also widely available! I can guarantee that more young people are killed by the effects of alcohol than by Oxycontin. And yes, they can still sniff glue or smoke pot or take any number of synthetic substances such as Ecstasy and get their buzz that way. Oxycontin and Purdue are not the villains here; instead, we need to look to ourselves for responsibility and sometimes to the parents for their lack of responsibility. And ultimately, the person taking the drug is the one who has the REAL responsibility -- not only to themselves, but to everyone around them who might be affected one day by their bad decisions.

Let's put the blame where it belongs and STOP punishing the chronic pain patients, who are only trying to have some quality of life. Thank you for listening - now won't you please help us by spreading the word that we deserve to have our dignity restored and the quality of life returned to us - even if that means we have to take Oxycontin in order to be able to live?

Thank you.......KO

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars One-sided, at best..., January 29, 2004

By	Bucky (Haunted Mansion, The Magic Kingdom) - See all my reviews

Pain Killer is an interesting book in that it describes the circumstances surrounding the rise in Oxycontin abuse, particularly among America's rural poor, but it tends to be a bit one-sided and heavy handed in casting Purdue and its employees as heartless villians in this story. There can be no doubt that Oxy abuse has led to heartbreak for addicts and their families all across this country. And Purdue probably did emphasize too much its use for the treatment of moderate pain that would be just as well treated by other drugs with less potential for abuse.

But at the same time, this book practically ignores the countless numbers of patients whose intractable suffering has been eased by proper use of Oxycontin. Their stories are not told, their voices are silent, their suffering is unacknowledged. As much sympathy as I have for the addicts in this book, I would venture to say that the large majority of them never had to get involved with snorting or shooting up Oxy. But chronic pain suffers and those in the end stages of terminal diseases don't have the option of saying no to pain. I'd bet if you talked to them, Purdue and its employees are heroes, not villians. I would have liked to have heard some of their stories.

My other dissatisfaction with this book is that basically it is little better than an Atlantic or Harper's magazine article padded out to book length (with a larger font and lots of white space to increase the page count). There is a lot of repetitive info in here, and many times, the chronology of events gets a bit confusing. Sometimes, I had the feeling I was just re-reading the same 40 or so pages over and over. At some points, I just skimmed.

The story of Oxycontin and its abuse is definitely a cautionary tale, but I would have liked to have had both sides of the story.

25 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHRONIC PAIN PATIENTS, October 8, 2003

By	Beth (Columbia, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews

Chronic pain sufferers will find no useful information in this book. As a chronic pain patient successfully being treated in a medically supervised Pain Management program that includes the use of the prescription medication OxyContin, one thought kept running through my mind as I read Barry Meier's book, "Pain Killer"...something's missing?! There is by no means any lack of endless, often chronologically confusing, FDA,DEA,medical examiner or lab research reports. There's even a story inter-twined throughout all these mind-numbing statistics about a teenager and her family, whose lives are forever altered by the daughter's downward spiral into drug abuse, crime and eventual unwanted pregnancy.
What is sadly lacking in this combination of shock journalism and re-printed office memos, is the obvious lack of interviews with successfully treated chronic pain patients; a total and complete lack of understanding and empathy on the part of the author towards people, like myself, who suffer with pain everyday; whose only wish is to live a relatively pain-free existance...to be a good wife and mother.