Mini-Series
“The Pharmacist”
This four-part 2020 Netflix docuseries is a modern David versus Goliath saga about a small-town Louisiana pharmacist who takes drastic measures to hunt down his adult son’s killer before separately helping to topple a New Orleans pill mill doctor and then the Goliath: Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin.
The pharmacist, Dan Schneider, is a riveting figure and an unlikely and imperfect hero. When his son, Danny Jr., was shot and killed in 1999 at the age of 22 while trying to buy crack in the Lower Ninth Ward, he becomes fixated on solving the case, especially after police hit only dead ends. He single-handedly starts the chain reaction that brings his son’s killer to justice in 2000. Almost immediately after, in late 2000, Schneider starts to connect new dots after seeing a surge of young people coming to his pharmacy with OxyContin prescriptions.
He kept meticulous details of his detective work, including seemingly endless recordings of conversations, giving this series tremendous heft while providing context for the early years of an American opioid epidemic in which a corporation knowingly sacrificed lives for profit.
Podcast
“Dr. Death” Season 2: “Dr. Fata”
Season 1 of “Dr. Death,” which tells the story of Christopher Duntsch, was an instant hit. Now this Wondery podcast has three more seasons, including this exploration of the crimes of Farid Fata, a Michigan hematologist and oncologist who orchestrated one of the most elaborate and deadly health-care frauds in U.S. history.
Across four episodes hosted by the science journalist Laura Beil, we hear from Fata’s patients, families of patients and those who worked for him, who share chilling details about how he deluded and manipulated hundreds, even thousands, of patients, some of whom died as a result of his crimes. That state authorities overlooked and brushed aside early and specific warnings makes it all the more grim.
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The post True Crime to Stream: Medical Mayhem appeared first on New York Times.
