American overdose : the opioid tragedy in three acts

Resource Information

The work American overdose : the opioid tragedy in three acts represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Manchester City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

American overdose : the opioid tragedy in three acts

Title remainder

the opioid tragedy in three acts

Statement of responsibility

Chris McGreal

Creator

• McGreal, Chris

Author

• McGreal, Chris

Subject

• History
• Opioid abuse -- United States -- History
• Chronic pain -- Treatment -- United States
• United States, Food and Drug Administration. -- Political aspects
• Drug abuse -- United States

Genre

• History

Language

eng

Summary

• "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."--Dust jacket
• Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the opioid epidemic, 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. A few physicians warned of impending disaster, but the 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-- resulted in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland. McGreal shows how its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future. -- adapted from jacket

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

362.29

Index

index present

Language note

Text in English

LC call number

RC568.O45

LC item number

M46 2018

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

NLM call number

WM 284

NLM item number

M147a 2018