Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong

by Paul A. Offit

Doctors were arrested and charged with manslaughter and murder. Some were jailed. No case, however, drew more national media attention than that of Dr. James Graves, a 55-year-old Florida physician who was charged with manslaughter in the overdose deaths of four of his patients. Graves’s prescription mill was widely known among addicts. “The word spread that he was the go-to doctor to get pills,” said Russ Edgar, the assistant state attorney. Edgar argued in court that Graves had bragged that writing prescriptions for painkillers was a “gold mine” because he had rarely examined patients and didn’t have to fill out medical records. Edgar also claimed that Graves had ignored the pleas of pharmacists and parents to change his prescribing habits. Indeed, Graves’s parking lot often resembled scenes more commonly found at sporting events. Patients would eat, work on their cars, and give each other high-fives when they emerged with their OxyContin prescriptions. “You’ve got to realize something’s wrong when outside your office people are having tailgate parties,” said Edgar. During the trial, Edgar argued that, “Mother after mother after mother called the defendant’s office and asked him to quit giving their children drugs or they would die. The defendant did not quit and they continued to overdose.” Graves countered that no one would have died if patients had simply used the drugs as prescribed. And he railed against the prosecutor, whom he considered ungodly, telling the judge,...