The Age of Fentanyl by Brodie Ramin

Author:Brodie Ramin [Ramin, Brodie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2020-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Rethinking Our Relationship with Opioids and Big Pharma

When Marcia Angell’s father was eighty-one years old, he shot himself. He lived with his wife outside of Orlando, Florida. On March 15, 1988, as his wife lay sleeping in the next room, he took a pistol from the bedside table, turned his head to ensure the bullet would not harm her, and ended his life. Marcia Angell, a physician trained as a pathologist who rose through the ranks to become editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and a professor at Harvard Medical School, shared this tragic story in an editorial supporting physician-assisted suicide in a January 1997 issue of the journal.1

She said later that her father was a Republican who was protective of his family and believed in patriotism and the right to self-determination. He was a civil engineer and had worked with the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Army Corps of Engineers, and “as chief design engineer of the St. Lawrence Seaway.” He served in the South Pacific during the Second World War and “became a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve.”2

At the time of his death, he was not depressed or in extreme pain. He had metastatic prostate cancer, and earlier that day he had fallen while walking back to his bed from the bathroom. His wife could not lift him, so she called the paramedics. They helped him into bed and said they would be back the next day to take him to the hospital. He must have thought it was his last night of independence, his last opportunity to end the suffering when and how he chose.

Marcia Angell does not look like a revolutionary; nor does she make a habit of sharing personal stories. In interviews, in media appearances, and in lectures spanning the past two decades, she speaks in a calm tone and with a measured cadence; she speaks without anger or condescension. But she does not soften her message by using meek words, either. She is a pathologist who cuts through the unyielding connective tissue of lies and greed to get to the soft layer of truth underneath.

She is the enemy of any agent in America’s health care system that places profit over health. She has a lot of enemies. To America’s pharmaceutical industry, she is a dangerous, outspoken radical. She is a skeptic, asking tough questions, challenging conventional wisdom. She says skepticism is an essential quality of a scientist, a quality that is often forgotten in the face of profit.

In its April 21, 1997, issue, Time listed the twenty-five most influential Americans. A number of the names are still familiar today; some have fallen out of the media limelight; others have fallen into disgrace. First on the list was Tiger Woods. Other names on the list included Harvey Weinstein, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and one fictional figure, Dilbert, the comic strip anti-personality. In the middle of the list, surrounded by tech billionaires and politicians, was Marcia Angell, cited for her clear and rational voice on all medical issues from her perch at the New England Journal of Medicine.

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