Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Best book I have read for ages, not much to add to the five stars reviews here. Investigative journalism and stylish writing of the highest order.

This was a fascinating read on a subjectI had looked at in a minor way before.This book is super detailed about the Oxy-Contin/Opioid scandal in the USA and beyond. Clever marketing by the Sackler family made them billions in a comparitively short time, whilst killing more 'pain sufferers' than all post WW11casualties..

This is an easy book to read. The author has an easy, page-turning style and the 540 pages of quite small type hurry by.But another reason is its predictability. There are no impartial characters here. Everyone in the Sackler family is bad. Their lawyers are bad. Their executives are bad. Every judge who doesn’t come down hard on them is bad. Meanwhile anyone who stands up to them, investigates them, defends them in court, is bad.It becomes tedious.There is another point of view, a defence, however weak, that we deserve to hear.And the inevitable conclusion, that the family made huge profits from overselling a drug that carried a real risk of causing addiction, would be all the stronger from a less partisan approach.More and better-printed photos would have been appreciated.As would more about the other painkillers on the market.As would more about the chemistry of addiction.

It's like Dynasty but with more self-absorbtion, greed, excess and death.

A good book that is both shocking and somehow inevitable. The author marshallshis facts and tells the story chronologically. The chronology and the thoroughness is important. The Sackler family did not inadvertently make a mistake, what this book makes absolutely makes clear is that they systematically set about creating the scenario where other people's addiction and deaths were a byproduct of their addiction to corporate and personal profits. It also makes it relatively clear that President "drain the swamp" Trump's administration was involved in protecting the Sackler family's wealth. It was never more clear that we are not "in it together. " Whilst not directly related you can see where vaccine deniers get their beef with corporate pharma from.