Summary of Paul A. Offit's Pandora's Lab

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The first civilization produced the first medicine, which was opium. It was so powerful that ancient cultures believed it came from the gods. The money is in the seedpod, which contains a milky white liquid that hardens into a dark gum.
#2 The Romans were also smitten with the opium poppy, which was emblazoned on their coins and honored by their god of sleep, Somnos. But they also understood that opium could be a powerful poison.
#3 Americans also embraced liquid opium. It was a staple of the patent medicine craze, and was easily purchased over the counter. It was also used by many actors, gamblers, prostitutes, and criminals.
#4 The Harrison Act, which was passed in 1914, made it illegal for doctors to prescribe narcotics to maintain an addiction. It would take almost a hundred years before doctors were held accountable for violating this law.

Sujets

• Fitness
• Health
• Health Care Issues

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822504004
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Paul A. Offit's Pandora's Lab
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The first civilization produced the first medicine, which was opium. It was so powerful that ancient cultures believed it came from the gods. The money is in the seedpod, which contains a milky white liquid that hardens into a dark gum.

#2

The Romans were also smitten with the opium poppy, which was emblazoned on their coins and honored by their god of sleep, Somnos. But they also understood that opium could be a powerful poison.

#3

Americans also embraced liquid opium. It was a staple of the patent medicine craze, and was easily purchased over the counter. It was also used by many actors, gamblers, prostitutes, and criminals.

#4

The Harrison Act, which was passed in 1914, made it illegal for doctors to prescribe narcotics to maintain an addiction. It would take almost a hundred years before doctors were held accountable for violating this law.

#5

In the late 1800s, a chemist in London named C. R. Alder Wright boiled morphine with the reactive form of acetic acid, which produced diacetylmorphine. He was convinced that he had created a nonaddictive pain reliever.

#6

By 1898, Heinrich Dreser had tested the drug on only a handful of people for about four weeks, and he had found that it could treat morphine addiction. He believed that he had found the perfect drug.

#7

The US government spent a lot of money trying to stop the spread of heroin in the 1960s, but by the 1970s, it had spread to the Harlem jazz scene and the beat generation.

#8

The next wonder drug was oxycodone, which was derived from thebaine, named for Thebes, a town in ancient Egypt where the opium poppy was grown. In the early 1950s, oxycodone made its American debut.

#9

In 1986, Russell Portenoy, a 31-year-old New York City pain specialist, published a paper in the journal Pain arguing that American physicians should get over their fear of painkillers. He reported the stories of 38 people who were on high-dose pain medicines, and only 2 had become addicted to them.

#10

OxyContin was prescribed for almost any injury or pain, and it became easy to obtain. It was often stolen from pharmacies, and sold on the street by addicts to supplement their meager Social Security checks.

#11

OxyContin abuse first appeared in rural Maine in the late 1990s, and then spread down the East Coast to include West Virginia, Kentucky, and southern Ohio. By 1999, deaths from oxycodone use in Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania outnumbered car fatalities.

#12

OxyContin was prescribed to more than 1. 3 million Americans in 2002. In 2003, conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh admitted that he was addicted to the drug. In 2004, three million people were using OxyContin.

#13

OxyContin was one of the most addictive narcotics ever sold. And Russell Portenoy’s war on pain was one of modern medicine’s biggest mistakes.

#14

The lessons from the failed war on pain is that you should base your recommendations on a mountain of evidence, not a molehill.