Pharmaceutical breakthroughs such as antibiotics and vaccines rank among some of the greatest advancements in human history. Yet exorbitant prices for life-saving drugs, safety recalls affecting tens of millions of Americans, and soaring rates of addiction and overdose on prescription opioids have caused many to lose faith in drug companies. Now, Americans are demanding a national reckoning with a monolithic industry.

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.".