Not long after he received Okrent’s questions, Meier was summoned into the office of Al Siegal, one of the top editors at the Times, to discuss whether it was appropriate for him to write an article about painkillers when he had a book to sell on the same subject. Of course it was appropriate, Meier exclaimed. He was an expert on the subject! He knew the story inside out! He had the technical knowledge! He had the sources! And it’s not as though he had gratuitously mentioned his book in the Rush Limbaugh piece. He hadn’t even mentioned Purdue until the eleventh paragraph. “It was hugely
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