Includes bibliographical references (pages 541-573) and index.

Patient zero -- The poison squad -- Enter the Feds -- The wonder drug -- "Could you patent the sun?" -- An unlikely trio -- A one-atom difference -- A "Jewish kid from Brooklyn" -- Medicine Avenue -- The hard sell blitz -- A haven for communists -- The puppet master -- Fake doctors -- A "Sackler empire" -- "Be happy" pills -- "The therapeutic jungle" -- "Paint the worst possible picture" -- Thalidomide to the rescue -- The $100 million drug -- Legal but somehow "shifty" -- Targeting women -- Death with dignity -- "Go-go Goddard" -- "Here, eat this root" -- "They clean their own cages" -- "Splashdown!" -- "Tell him his lawyer is calling" -- A new definition of Blockbuster -- "Kiss the ring" -- The temple of Dendur -- "Valumania" -- Swine flu -- "Black River" -- "Everything can be abused" -- The age of biotech -- A "gay cancer" -- "None of the public's damned business" -- A pain management revolution -- Enter generics -- Selling hearts and minds -- "No one likes airing dirty laundry in public" -- "The sales department on steroids" -- "$$$$$$$$$$$$$ it's Bonus time in the neighborhood" -- Talking stomachs and dead presidents -- "We have to hammer on the abusers" -- "Giving Purdue a free pass" -- "You messed with the wrong mother" -- Profits and corpses -- Gaming the system -- Billion-dollar orphans -- The coming pandemic -- "Essentially a crime family."