A World of Hurt: Fixing Pain Medicine's Biggest Mistake

By Barry Meier

Categories: Health, Fitness & Dieting

A World of Hurt (2013), an e-book by New York Times reporter Barry Meier, argues that the rise of opioid painkillers for chronic pain was one of medicine's biggest mistakes. Meier describes how drug companies and medical experts promoted narcotics such as OxyContin for common conditions like back pain and headaches. Drawing on researchers and patients, he shows evidence that long-term use often fails to control pain and causes addiction and other harms, and looks at other ways of treating pain.

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• Andrew Ross Sorkin: “My pal @barrymeier is out with a great new book on the prescription painkiller epidemic: "A World of Hurt"”