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In 1900, Bayer, the German pharmaceutical company that had developed aspirin, introduced a much stronger brand of pain killer in the United States. The new drug was called heroin, a name derived from the German word for “heroic.” The company promoted it as a treatment for an array of ills: colds, coughs, asthma, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, stomach cancer, schizophrenia. It also advertised heroin as safe for children. And anyone over 18 could buy it, Gerald Posner notes in a new book, Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America.
Bayer was hardly the only company at the time touting
Bayer was hardly the only company at the time touting
