Pushing Painkillers | An Untapped Market | S53-E1

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2021

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Doctors once shied away from using opioids to treat chronic pain, citing the risk of addiction. But in the 1970s, a new generation of doctors started to argue that opioids should be reconsidered, and that allowing terminal patients to suffer in agony is torturous. As the palliative care movement grows, Purdue Frederick, a small pharmaceutical company, sees an opportunity to bring opioids out of the shadows and to the masses...to devastating effect.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an episode of a Wondery Plus exclusive series.
0:03.6	To continue listening, join Wondery Plus and enjoy Ad Free Listening to over 40,000 episodes,
0:08.9	early access to your favorite podcasts and more.
0:11.6	Find Wondery Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple
0:14.1	podcasts. You're about to hear the first episode of the first ever Wundery Plus
0:19.6	exclusive season of American Innovations, pushing painkillers.
0:24.9	To listen to the whole series, ad free, subscribe to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or The Wondery App. or the Wondery app. It's September 13,
0:40.0	It's September 13, 2005.
0:43.2	Dr. Stephen Schneider drives through the streets of a suburb in Wichita, Kansas.
0:48.2	He passes by Wheat Fields as he makes his way from his home to the medical clinic he runs with his wife.
0:54.0	Schneider is 51 years old, with broad shoulders and a neatly trimmed mustache.
0:59.0	He taps his hands on the steering wheel, excited for another day at work. He loves being a doctor.
1:05.0	He finds it rewarding, giving physicals to high school athletes and treating residents at local nursing homes.
1:11.0	But most of all, he likes treating people in pain and making them feel better.
1:16.0	In the past few years, pain has become his specialty.
1:20.0	What the heck? But as Schneider pulls up to his sprawling Santa Fe style clinic,
1:25.2	he doesn't find the usual line of patients waiting for him to open. Instead, it's
1:29.9	cordoned off with police tape. People in Navy blue jackets reading DEA swarm around the building.
1:37.1	As he parks, Schneider turns to see two men
1:39.7	in aviator's sunglasses standing outside his window.
1:43.0	Dr Stephen Schneider?
1:45.0	Schneider nods.
	...

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