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A review by meekoh
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
4.0
4.5★
The medical industry was supposed to be an outlier in the capitalist vortex. A rare sanctuary that did not prioritize corporate interests over patient care. Morally upstanding and highly educated doctors were seen as surely immune to corporate propaganda and financial incentives. In hindsight, it seems like an incredibly naïve mindset.
In the absence of regulatory barriers, market forces will always course correct to the most profitable outcome, codifying future commercial practices. This book documents the downward spiral of the medical industry’s ability to protect patients from being bulldozed by business interests.
It is a record of how a national decade-long prescription epidemic morphed into a heroin epidemic (and on to fentanyl).
It is the reason many Americans do not trust big pharma to develop vaccines.
It is a testament to the low regard with which plutocrats prioritize human life.
The medical industry was supposed to be an outlier in the capitalist vortex. A rare sanctuary that did not prioritize corporate interests over patient care. Morally upstanding and highly educated doctors were seen as surely immune to corporate propaganda and financial incentives. In hindsight, it seems like an incredibly naïve mindset.
In the absence of regulatory barriers, market forces will always course correct to the most profitable outcome, codifying future commercial practices. This book documents the downward spiral of the medical industry’s ability to protect patients from being bulldozed by business interests.
It is a record of how a national decade-long prescription epidemic morphed into a heroin epidemic (and on to fentanyl).
It is the reason many Americans do not trust big pharma to develop vaccines.
It is a testament to the low regard with which plutocrats prioritize human life.