
Kill Shot
A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jason Dearen
-
By:
-
Jason Dearen
About this listen
An award-winning investigative journalist's horrifying true-crime story of America's deadliest drug contamination outbreak and the greed and deception that fueled it.
Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. The death count: 100 and rising. Kill Shot is the story of their hubris and fraud, discovered by a team of medical detectives who raced against the clock to hunt the killers and the fungal meningitis they'd unleashed.
"Bloodthirsty" is how doctors described the fungal microbe that contaminated thousands of drug vials produced by the New England Compounding Center (NECC). Though NECC chief Barry Cadden called his company the "Ferrari of Compounders", it was a slapdash operation of unqualified staff, mold-ridden lab surfaces, and hastily made medications that were injected into approximately 14,000 people. Once inside some of its human hosts, the fungus traveled through the tough tissue around the spine and wormed upward to the "deep brain", our control center for balance, breath, and the vital motor functions of life.
Now, investigative journalist Jason Dearen turns a spotlight on this tragedy - the victims, the heroes, and the perpetrators - and the legal loopholes that allowed it to occur. Kill Shot forces a powerful but unchecked industry out of the shadows.
©2020 Jason Dearen (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Bottle of Lies
- The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom
- By: Katherine Eban
- Narrated by: Katherine Eban
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From an award-winning Fortune reporter, an explosive narrative investigation of the generic drug boom that reveals the life-threatening dangers posed by globalization - The Jungle for pharmaceuticals.
-
-
overbearing self-righteous indignation
- By VB on 01-13-20
By: Katherine Eban
-
Pain Killer
- An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic
- By: Barry Meier
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 250,000 Americans died from overdoses involving prescription painkillers, a plague ignited by Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Families, working class and wealthy, have been torn apart, businesses destroyed, and public officials pushed to the brink. Meanwhile, the drugmaker’s owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin.
-
-
Infuriating and Compelling
- By TiffanyD on 12-24-18
By: Barry Meier
-
Sickening
- How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It
- By: John Abramson
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States spends an excess $1.5 trillion annually on health care compared to other wealthy countries—yet the amount of time that Americans live in good health ranks a lowly 68th in the world. At the heart of the problem is Big Pharma, which funds most clinical trials and therefore controls the research agenda, withholds the real data from those trials as corporate secrets, and shapes most of the information relied upon by health care professionals.
-
-
Great info, but I’m confused…
- By Iread on 04-04-22
By: John Abramson
-
When the Moon Turns to Blood
- Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a Story of Murder, Wild Faith, and End Times
- By: Leah Sottile
- Narrated by: Leah Sottile
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When police in Rexburg, Idaho perform a wellness check on seven-year-old J.J. Vallow and his sister, sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan, both children are nowhere to be found. Their mother, Lori Vallow, gives a phony explanation, and when officers return the following day with a search warrant, she, too, is gone. As the police begin to close in, a larger web of mystery, murder, fanaticism and deceit begins to unravel. Vallow’s case is sinuously complex. As investigators prod further, they find the accused Black Widow has an unusual number of bodies piling up around her.
-
-
More than true crime
- By Tanny M. Martin on 07-06-22
By: Leah Sottile
-
Empire of Pain
- The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
- By: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Narrated by: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The prize-winning and best-selling author of Say Nothing presents a grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.
-
-
Full Account of the Sackler Conspiracy
- By Edward Bisch on 04-13-21
-
Exposure
- Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont
- By: Robert Bilott
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Mark Ruffalo - Introduction
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Silent Spring meets Erin Brockovich in this eye-opening, riveting true story of the lawyer who spent two decades building a case against DuPont for its use of the hazardous, unregulated chemical PFOA, uncovering a history of environmental contamination that affects virtually every person on the planet, and the heartless behavior that kept it a secret for 60 years.
-
-
Tenacious
- By Gary S. on 01-02-20
By: Robert Bilott
-
Bottle of Lies
- The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom
- By: Katherine Eban
- Narrated by: Katherine Eban
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From an award-winning Fortune reporter, an explosive narrative investigation of the generic drug boom that reveals the life-threatening dangers posed by globalization - The Jungle for pharmaceuticals.
-
-
overbearing self-righteous indignation
- By VB on 01-13-20
By: Katherine Eban
-
Pain Killer
- An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic
- By: Barry Meier
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 250,000 Americans died from overdoses involving prescription painkillers, a plague ignited by Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Families, working class and wealthy, have been torn apart, businesses destroyed, and public officials pushed to the brink. Meanwhile, the drugmaker’s owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin.
-
-
Infuriating and Compelling
- By TiffanyD on 12-24-18
By: Barry Meier
-
Sickening
- How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It
- By: John Abramson
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States spends an excess $1.5 trillion annually on health care compared to other wealthy countries—yet the amount of time that Americans live in good health ranks a lowly 68th in the world. At the heart of the problem is Big Pharma, which funds most clinical trials and therefore controls the research agenda, withholds the real data from those trials as corporate secrets, and shapes most of the information relied upon by health care professionals.
-
-
Great info, but I’m confused…
- By Iread on 04-04-22
By: John Abramson
-
When the Moon Turns to Blood
- Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a Story of Murder, Wild Faith, and End Times
- By: Leah Sottile
- Narrated by: Leah Sottile
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When police in Rexburg, Idaho perform a wellness check on seven-year-old J.J. Vallow and his sister, sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan, both children are nowhere to be found. Their mother, Lori Vallow, gives a phony explanation, and when officers return the following day with a search warrant, she, too, is gone. As the police begin to close in, a larger web of mystery, murder, fanaticism and deceit begins to unravel. Vallow’s case is sinuously complex. As investigators prod further, they find the accused Black Widow has an unusual number of bodies piling up around her.
-
-
More than true crime
- By Tanny M. Martin on 07-06-22
By: Leah Sottile
-
Empire of Pain
- The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
- By: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Narrated by: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The prize-winning and best-selling author of Say Nothing presents a grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.
-
-
Full Account of the Sackler Conspiracy
- By Edward Bisch on 04-13-21
-
Exposure
- Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont
- By: Robert Bilott
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Mark Ruffalo - Introduction
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Silent Spring meets Erin Brockovich in this eye-opening, riveting true story of the lawyer who spent two decades building a case against DuPont for its use of the hazardous, unregulated chemical PFOA, uncovering a history of environmental contamination that affects virtually every person on the planet, and the heartless behavior that kept it a secret for 60 years.
-
-
Tenacious
- By Gary S. on 01-02-20
By: Robert Bilott
-
The Monsanto Papers
- Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice
- By: Carey Gillam
- Narrated by: Chloe Cannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lee Johnson was a man with simple dreams. He never imagined that he would become the face of a David-and-Goliath showdown against one of the world's most powerful corporate giants. But a workplace accident left Lee doused in a toxic chemical and facing a deadly cancer that turned his life upside down. In 2018, the world watched as Lee was thrust to the forefront of one the most dramatic legal battles in recent history. The Monsanto Papers takes listeners behind the scenes of a grueling legal battle, pulling back the curtain on the frailties of the American court system.
-
-
So this is what happened
- By Yvonne B Dilsworth on 09-20-24
By: Carey Gillam
-
The Icepick Surgeon
- Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Ben Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process.
-
-
FANTASTIC! & What’s up with all these naysayers (negative reviewers)?!
- By Zophie Leslea on 08-19-21
By: Sam Kean
-
Diagnosis
- Solving the Most Baffling Medical Mysteries
- By: Lisa Sanders
- Narrated by: Lisa Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a Yale School of Medicine physician, the New York Times best-selling author of Every Patient Tells a Story, and an inspiration and adviser for the hit Fox TV drama, House, M.D., Lisa Sanders has seen it all. And yet, she is often confounded by the cases she describes in her column: unexpected collections of symptoms that she and other physicians struggle to diagnose. Dr. Sanders shows how making the right diagnosis requires expertise, painstaking procedure, and sometimes a little luck.
-
-
Repetitive from her previous work
- By anon on 03-08-21
By: Lisa Sanders
-
The Song of the Cell
- An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene, a #1 New York Times bestseller, comes his most spectacular book yet, an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. Rich with Mukherjee’s revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer’s exploration of what it means to be human.
-
-
Beyond Words Wonderful
- By Lynn on 11-27-22
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
-
Evicted
- Poverty and Profit in the American City
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as “wrenching and revelatory” (The Nation), “vivid and unsettling” (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.
-
-
Former Property Manager
- By Charla on 05-18-16
By: Matthew Desmond
-
With the Devil's Help
- A True Story of Poverty, Mental Illness, and Murder
- By: Neal Wooten
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of The Glass Castle, Educated, and Heartland, Neal Wooten traces five decades of his dirt-poor, Alabama mountain family as the years and secrets coalesce.
-
-
From knock to knock, it will keep you wondering!
- By Scotty Baker on 02-25-23
By: Neal Wooten
-
The Nurse’s Secret
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the slums of 1880s New York, Una Kelly has grown up to be a rough-and-tumble grifter, able to filch a pocketbook in five seconds flat. But when another con-woman pins her for a murder she didn't commit, Una is forced to flee. Running from the police, Una lies her way into an unlikely refuge: the nursing school at Bellevue Hospital.
-
-
Predictable
- By Lorraine E. Collins on 07-05-22
-
Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes Are High!
- By: Jeff Thull
- Narrated by: Jeff Thull
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In today's turbulent and volatile marketplace, even the most experienced professionals are struggling with the rapid commoditization of their complex, high-value solutions. The complexity of the problems to be solved and the competitive threats we face are increasing at an alarming rate. At the same time, your customers are wrestling with mission-critical decisions and evaluating solutions that all sound the same and come packaged with a high degree of risk and a low probability of success. Your success demands an exceptional strategy and precise execution that must clearly set you apart from your competition.
-
-
I don't recommend listening
- By Lisa on 10-30-13
By: Jeff Thull
-
The Facemaker
- A Visionary Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Daniel Gillies
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. The First World War claimed millions of lives and left millions more wounded and disfigured. In the midst of this brutality, however, there were also those who strove to alleviate suffering. The Facemaker tells the extraordinary story of such an individual: the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies.
-
-
My favorite author
- By Dani on 06-07-22
-
Bone Deep
- Untangling the Betsy Faria Case
- By: Charles Bosworth, Joel Schwartz
- Narrated by: Gary Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two days after Christmas, 2011, Russel Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home to find his wife, Betsy, dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She had been stabbed 55 times in a brutal murder that would set off a chain of events leading to one man's wrongful conviction and imprisonment, another man's death, the revelation of a diabolical scheme, and an astounding miscarriage of justice left unresolved for another 10 years.
-
-
One of the Best
- By V. Orner on 03-01-22
By: Charles Bosworth, and others
-
Vaccinated
- From Cowpox to mRNA, the Remarkable Story of Vaccines
- By: Paul A. Offit
- Narrated by: Tim Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Respected physician Paul Offit tells a fascinating story of modern medicine and pays tribute to one of the greatest lifesaving breakthroughs—vaccinations—and the medical hero responsible for developing nine of the big fourteen vaccines which have saved billions of lives worldwide.
-
-
Must read for pediatric professionals and public health professional
- By laithejeilat on 04-15-24
By: Paul A. Offit
Critic reviews
"If you like fast-paced forensic thrillers á la Kathy Reichs, you’ll love this tale of death and mayhem.... A harrowing, fast-paced tale of blind greed and sloppy science." (Kirkus, starred review)
"A gripping journey.... Informative and engrossing, this book is a page-turner about a deadly outbreak and a reckless compounding pharmacy. Recommended for fans of true-life medical thrillers." (Library Journal, starred review)
"This unnerving true tale is a crowd-pleaser for fans of true crime and medical mysteries." (Discover Magazine's Must-Read Science Books)
Exceptionally good reporting!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Powerful and Must Read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
YOU ARE THE RESEARCH!
keep this in mind
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A shocking insight into compounding pharmacy
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Chilling look at compounding drugs in America
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Eye opening
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellent read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Must read for Compounding Techs and Pharmacists
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Riveting from the start!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
At the time of these incidents, if we had not had a very good leader at our company we may have been forced out of business. This paddles to the losses of these victims and loved ones but is additional to the crimes committed. This is not the first “pharmacy” crime environment but hopefully opened eyes for many.
My heart aches for the torture these victims physically felt and trauma their loved ones endured. This is a well-written book, thank for bring the details to the forefront and portraying the participants in these acts as the careless criminals they are.
Fall Out
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.