Chapter Content
Okay, so here we go. This is, like, all the notes from the book, right? A ton of sources, so strap in. Um, so, first off, there's some stuff about, uh, David Sackler and Kathe Sackler and, oh yeah, the Purdue Pharma CEO, Craig Landau. You can, like, totally read their testimony before the House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Reform. It was a hearing. Uh, you can find it online, you know? There's even a video on YouTube, which is kind of wild, actually.
Alright, moving on. There's this part about some bank robberies, and Casper and C-Dog. These dudes, uh, they were part of this Los Angeles bank robbery surge back in the, like, seventies, eighties, and nineties. You can find info on this in a book called "Where the Money Is: True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World." It's by William Rehder and Gordon Dillow. There's also stuff about the West Hill Bandits, the Eight Trey Gangster Crips, and the Nasty Boys. These are all, like, crazy names, right?
I also remember reading, uh, some newspaper articles about Casper and C-Dog. There was one in the LA Times by Jesse Katz and another one in the New York Times by Robert Reinhold. Oh, and Time magazine, there's an article in there, "Nasty Boys, Nasty Time," by John Greenwald.
Anyway, apparently, after Casper and C-Dog got arrested, bank robberies in LA went down. There's, like, a chart about this in an LA Times article by Brittny Mejia.
Um, so, for some national bank-robbery stats, there's this dissertation, like, a super old one from 1982 by James Francis Haran. And another old one, a Yale PhD dissertation from 1968 by George M. Camp.
Oh yeah, and the number of bank branches? That comes from the FDIC’s "BankFind Suite" tool. Apparently, the number of branches jumped from, like, almost 22,000 in 1970 to, like, almost 64,000 in 1999. Wow, that's crazy.
Speaking of bank robbers, there's Willie Sutton. You can read about him in his memoir, "Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber." And, uh, the New York Daily News has a story about his arrest, like, archived on their website. In his memoir, Sutton claimed he stole, like, a ton of money from banks, like, twenty million bucks today, which is insane!
Okay, shifting gears a bit, there’s the Lyndon Johnson administration’s Regional Medical Program. You can find an overview of that in the National Library of Medicine's "Profiles in Science" collection. Under that program, there was this guy, John Wennberg. Um, he did some research on, like, medical care in Vermont. His original paper was published in Science in 1973, but, you know, there's articles in Dartmouth Medicine that summarize it, too.
And, uh, there's this interview with Wennberg in Health Affairs. That's where I got his quotes about Stowe and Waterbury. There's also a paper he wrote comparing Middlebury, Vermont, and Randolph, New Hampshire. That was published in the Journal of the Maine Medical Association. He analyzed it later in his book "Tracking Medicine: A Researcher's Quest to Understand Health Care."
So, Wennberg and some other researchers, they figured out that patient demand isn't that important in explaining variations in, you know, health-care spending. They did a study in the American Economic Journal.
The rates of physician visits during the last two years of patients’ lives are from the Dartmouth Atlas's "Care for Chronically Ill" dataset. I looked at the spreadsheet of data, you know, the longitudinal one.
Moving on from healthcare for a bit. Vaccination rates for California middle schools? Those are on the California Department of Public Health website. Um, I looked at the, like, 2012-2013 immunization data for 7th graders, but, like, you can find other years and grades there too.
And, oh yeah, the CDC has reports on the Disneyland measles outbreak, as well as the prior California outbreak, you know, from before that. Those are on their website, too. And, like, there’s also a Wikipedia page about the "anti-Waldorf" law, which removed the personal-belief exemption from, you know, school vaccine requirements.
Now, this next bit is about Philip Esformes. Most of the transcripts from his jury trial aren't, like, freely available. They're super expensive, it's kind of nuts. But the New York Times published some excerpts, including the sentencing hearing. You can read, like, his tearful testimony from that. There were thoughts on Philips from Rabbi Lipskar and Esformes' lawyer, Howard Srebnick, too.
Some other details about Esformes, like his Playboy-model escort, those were from another excerpt published by the New York Times, um, like a transcript from a different hearing. And, yeah, a lot of other stuff about Esformes, his business, his trial, came from the trial transcript, you know, from the testimony of Guillermo "Willy" Delgado, Gabriel "Gaby" Delgado, and Nelson Salazar.
Oh, and there's even videos of Philip Esformes's sons playing basketball and running drills on YouTube. There's also an account of Morris Esformes’s unique automobile, the one that he drove. That's in Mother Jones, and his tense sit-down with the reporters in his Lakers uniform.
For Elisa Sobo's study of Waldorf families, see her paper “Social Cultivation of Vaccine Refusal and Delay among Waldorf (Steiner) School Parents” in Medical Anthropology Quarterly.
And, oh, I mentioned that Waldorf promotional video, right? That was created by the Chicago Waldorf School. And there's also a blog post by The Waldorf Mom titled "Vaccines: My Journey."
Oh, there’s this David Molitor guy, right? He, like, elaborates on his research on small-area variation among heart-attack treatment in his paper "The Evolution of Physician Practice Styles: Evidence from Cardiologist Migration," published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. And the numbers for Buffalo and Boulder's rates of heart catheterization, those are from the appendix.
Now, the proportion of US GDP spent on healthcare, that comes from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. And the figure for Canada, that's from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. The figures for Medicare enrollment and spending, also from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. For enrollment, look at that site, and for spending, look at this other site.
Estimates of the annual cost of Medicare fraud are on CNBC. And data on Medicare durable-equipment spending in Florida, that's from the Dartmouth Atlas.
The history of 1980s Miami, with the population and crime data, and, like, the account of Isaac Kattan Kassin? That's from "The Year of Dangerous Days" by Nicholas Griffin. Some details about Miami’s underground economy are from Rebecca Wakefield’s 2005 article “Awash in a Sea of Money” in the Miami New Times.
Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre's quote on the influx of Cubans after the Mariel boatlift, that's in a Miami Herald column by Charles Whited.
Oh, and there are details about, and even the floor plan of, the Fontainebleau Park Office Plaza in a public-investment presentation.
Okay, and there’s a list of Columbia/HCA executives ordered to appear before a grand jury in 1997 that was reported in the (Oklahoma City) Journal Record. You can read more about the fraud case against Columbia/HCA in the Justice Department’s press release detailing the company’s settlement. There’s also a good primer on the case in PolitiFact’s fact-check of a 2010 Democratic attack ad.
Oh, and this article will fill you in on the Esformes's legal journey, "Behind Trump Clemency, a Case in Special Access" from the New York Times.
There's also CNBC reporting on the Supreme Court’s rejection of Esformes’s appeal, you know, and his eventual guilty plea.
Okay, and then for Poplar Grove, I learned about it in "Life Under Pressure: The Social Roots of Youth Suicide and What to Do About Them" by Anna S. Mueller and Seth Abrutyn. And the quotes from Poplar Grove residents came from that book, or from conversations with Mueller and Abrutyn.
The history of zookeeping and captive-breeding programs, and the stories of the cheetah and Florida panther crises? That's from "Tears of the Cheetah: The Genetic Secrets of Our Animal Ancestors" by Stephen O'Brien.
For an overview of the term monoculture, check out the Oxford English Dictionary.
And the survey in which teenagers described the social crowds, that’s from a paper by B. Bradford Brown, Mary Jane Lohr, and Carla Trujillo that was published in the book "Adolescent Behavior and Society: A Book of Readings."
The graph of student perception of social distance among the social groups is from Brown’s 1996 paper.
And the quote from the "apoplectic" private breeder? That's by Don Shaw, founder of the Panther Survival Project. You can find it in the (Fort Myers) News-Press.
Okay, so for the Lawrence Tract, you can find a map of it on Nanosh Lucas's website. The account of the white homeowner in Germantown, Philadelphia who sold her house to a black family? That's from "The Demand for Housing in Racially Mixed Areas: A Study of the Nature of Neighborhood Change" by Chester Rapkin and William Grigsby.
The data on the racial demographics of the Russell Woods neighborhood in Detroit is from a report by graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.
The figures for the change in the white population of Atlanta in the sixties and seventies are from Kevin Kruse's "White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism."
Saul Alinsky's testimony in Chicago before the US Civil Rights Commission on housing is quoted. That quote by the community leader, that was Alinsky.
You can find Morton Grodzins's comments on white flight and the "tip point" in his article "Metropolitan Segregation" in Scientific American.
Rosabeth Kanter's study of group proportions, "Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women," was published in the American Journal of Sociology. And some details about that came from an interview with her.
Most details about Ursula Burns are from a conversation with her. Others are from her memoir, "Where You Are Is Not Who You Are."
Indra Nooyi's memoir is "My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future." The part about the reaction in the press to her becoming Pepsi's CEO is on page 192.
The count of Fortune 500 CEOs of Indian origin comes from the Indian business outlet CNBCTV-18. Heather Haddon's Wall Street Journal profile of Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan, that’s called "With Howard Schultz Gone, New Starbucks CEO Looks to Reset."
As quoted on Merriam-Webster's website, Homer Bigart wrote that "Some white parents may reluctantly accept integration to the extent of 10 to 15 per cent" in the New York Times.
The real estate executive interviewed by the Civil Rights Commission in Chicago was Robert H. Pease.
The quoted head of the DC school system is Carl F. Hansen. The relevant information is in his memoir, "Danger in Washington: The Story of My Twenty Years in the Public Schools in the Nation’s Capital." Alvin Rose testified at the same hearing referenced above.
Vicki W. Kramer, Alison M. Konrad, and Samru Erkut's study of fifty female executives found that a critical mass of women resulted in a more "open and collaborative" dynamic. That's a report by the Wellesley Centers for Women.
And there's this survey of male and female executives by Harvard Business Review that found that women are more willing to ask in-depth questions.
You can read about Sukhinder Singh Cassidy's project theBoardlist here.
There are two parts to Damon Centola's research on tipping points. He developed his name-guessing game in his 2015 paper. In a 2018 follow-up, Centola introduced dissidents.
For the analysis of how integration affects math achievement among black students, see "A critical race theory test of W.E.B. DuBois’ hypothesis: Do Black students need separate schools?" by Tara J. Yosso, William A. Smith, Daniel G. Solórzano, and Man Hung in Race Ethnicity and Education. Their study drew on the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies Program data.
There's also a summary of it all in Penn Today.
You can read about the black neighborhood of Ramona Street, and housing segregation in Palo Alto at Palo Alto History.org.
Many details about the Lawrence Tract’s development are from an oral history with Gerda Isenberg.
Many of the quotes from residents come from Loretta Green’s story in The Peninsula Times-Tribune, "A lot has happened in thirty years."
The story of the sale that threw off the racial proportions is recounted in Richard Meister’s "Laboratory for Equality: Palo Alto’s interracial housing experiment" as well as in Dorothy Strowger’s "The Lawrence Tract: Laboratory of Interracial Living."
The Princeton versus Harvard women’s game took place. The livestream with the narration that I quote can be viewed on YouTube.
You can see the 2023–2024 season record of the Harvard women’s rugby team here.
For a list of colleges with the most sports teams, visit this site.
Figure 1 in the UCLA Law Review article "Race and Privilege Misunderstood: Athletics and Selective College Admissions in (and Beyond) the Supreme Court Affirmative Action Cases" includes a bar chart.
In 2012 The Harvard Crimson ran an announcement by Samantha Lin and Justin C. Wong of the founding of the women’s varsity rugby team. Another feature, covered the recruiting process.
The statistic that ALDCs make up 30 percent of Harvard’s student body is in various SFFA documents. Justice Sonia Sotomayor mentions it in her dissent on page 44 of the Supreme Court decision.
Adam Mortara and William Fitzsimmons testified in the bench trial. The Harvard Crimson published a summary of the trial.
The quote about Harvard recruiting a squash player in New Zealand appears in the Harvard Crimson feature on athlete admissions.
The history of Columbia and Harvard’s Jewish-admissions quotas and Abbott Lawrence Lowell comes from Jerome Karabel’s "The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton."
The lists of Asian Americans enrolled at Caltech and Harvard are taken from the SFFA complaint against Harvard.
Sociological research about the extraordinary rate of postgraduate degrees among Nigerians was from Leslie Casimir’s Houston Chronicle article, "Data show Nigerians the most educated in the US."
Many quotes and details about the events of the US v. Khoury trial, are taken from the transcript.
Marianne Werdel's breakdown of the costs of playing junior tennis appears in two blog posts.
You can visit Timothy Donovan’s tennis-consulting website here.
The biographies of Harvard’s women rugby players are on their team-roster website.
The Sacramento rugby club that lists the schools for which its alumni have played is the Land Park Harlequins.
The trial transcript of the Supreme Court case Fisher v. University of Texas is available online.
For the student-body demographics of the University of Texas at Austin around the time that Abigail Fisher brought suit, see this site.
You can read Harvard’s full statement on the Supreme Court’s decision in the SFFA case here.
The account of the Biogen conference is taken from the Boston Globe article and the New York Times story.
Additional details about the Research Triangle branch of the outbreak in North Carolina are from the News & Observer and the Triangle Business Journal.
The story of Boston’s first COVID case is from the Boston Herald and a press release on the official City of Boston website.
You can read about how the Broad Institute created its large-scale emergency diagnostic testing lab in an article on that outfit’s website.
Jacob Lemieux and his colleagues’ research on the Biogen outbreak, and the path of COVID-19 through Boston can be found in their article "Phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in Boston highlights the impact of superspreading events" in Science.
More details about my trip to Denver with Donald Stedman appear in my story about it for The New Yorker, "Million-Dollar Murray."
"A well-tuned car made since 1983 emits 1 gram of carbon monoxide per mile," Stedman told Andrew Bowser.
The chart of vehicle emissions per decile of drivers in Los Angeles is from "Real-World Vehicle Emissions Measurement," a presentation by Donald Stedman and Gary A. Bishop.
For the Italian research on how electrifying vehicles would impact emissions, see Matteo Böhm, Mirco Nanni, and Luca Pappalardo, "Gross polluters and vehicle emissions reduction," Nature Sustainability.
Denver had terrible air quality. In 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency officially downgraded the Denver area to a “severe” air-quality violator. See "Air Quality Is Getting Worse in Denver" by Alayna Alvarez, Alex Fitzpatrick, and Kavya Beheraj.
For William Ristenpart’s research on the airborne nature of COVID, see "The coronavirus pandemic and aerosols: Does COVID-19 transmit via expiratory particles?", a report he co-wrote.
Some of the World Health Organization’s social-media posts insisting that COVID-19 is not airborne appear here.
For the study about the alpha variant’s rapid leveling up in aerosol production, see the paper "Infectious Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Exhaled Aerosols and Efficacy of Masks During Early Mild Infection."
The WHO eventually conceded that COVID-19 is airborne, as documented on its FAQ page.
The 1970s study of the highly infectious little girl with measles in Rochester is from E. C. Riley, G. Murphy, and R. L. Riley’s "Airborne Spread of Measles in a Suburban Elementary School." A helpful retrospective discussion of it also appears in Amir Teicher’s survey of superspreader research.
The study about aerosol emission and vocal volume from Ristenpart’s lab is titled "Aerosol emission and superemission during human speech increase with voice loudness."
For David Edwards’s particle-counting research about the factors that result in high aerosol emission, see "Exhaled aerosol increases with COVID-19 infection, age, and obesity."
The British COVID-19 challenge study has yielded publications. I first read about it in and.
For more on why it makes sense to drink water, see "Inadequate Hydration, BMI, and Obesity Among US Adults: NHANES 2009–2012."
The quote from Adam Kucharski’s "The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread—And Why They Stop" can be found on page 70.
Fred Diament’s biography and quotes are from two different oral histories. His life is summarized in the obituary by Elaine Woo in the Los Angeles Times.
You can read more about Sig Halbreich in an oral history and his obituary in the Los Angeles Times.
Quotes and information about Masha Loen are from her oral history, as well as from Rachel Lithgow’s obituary of Loen in Jewish Journal.
This history of what I dubbed the Los Angeles Survivors’ Club is largely from my conversation with Rachel Lithgow.
The translation of Hersh Glick’s "Partisan Song" ("Zog nit keyn mol") is taken from Wikipedia.
Peter Novick’s "The Holocaust in American Life" is quoted several times. Novick’s remark about the "strange rhythm" is from page 1. His quote about the New Leader personal essays appears on pages 105 and 106. Novick quotes the head of the AJC on pages 121–123. The observation by the German journalist can be found on page 213.
You can visit the index of the sixth edition of H. Stuart Hughes’s "Contemporary Europe: A History from 1965."
I reviewed volume two of Samuel E. Morison and Henry S. Commager’s 1962 edition of "The Growth of the American Republic." The passage that gets Anne Frank’s name wrong is on page 839.
Gerd Korman surveyed postwar history textbooks for mentions of the Holocaust in his 1970 article "Silence in America Textbooks."
Renée Firestone’s quotes and biography are from clips of her oral history, which is available on USC’s Shoah Foundation website.
Lidia Budgor’s quotes are from her oral history with the USC’s Shoah Foundation.
The chart showing the rising use of the uppercase Holocaust versus the lowercase holocaust is from a Steve Freiss article.
The anecdote about Paul Klein and Irwin Segelstein being inspired to make "Holocaust" after walking past World War II books is from an article by Kay Gardella.
I learned about Segelstein in articles.
I also read about Klein in articles.
Wikipedia devotes a page to Klein’s comments.
The anecdote about Lorne Michaels’s speech to Segelstein after the latter threatened to quit is on page 513 of Bill Carter’s "The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy."
The story about Klein picking Segelstein up for work is on page 196 of Sally Bedell’s biography of Fred Silverman.
Meryl Streep’s comments about shooting "Holocaust" are from page 182 of Michael Schulman’s biography of Streep.
Details about the cost and duration of creating "Holocaust" are taken from the Frank Rich story.
"Holocaust" director Marvin Chomsky’s quotes are from his oral history.
The scene of "Holocaust" described is the closing scene of the second episode.
Elie Wiesel’s comments on "Holocaust" were made in a piece for the New York Times.
Data about The Big Bang Theory and other TV-finale viewing numbers are from the introduction to "The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication" by William L. Benoit and Andrew C. Billings.
Larry Gross’s research on how television viewership homogenizes political opinion is from his publication “Charting the Mainstream.”
Information about the Bisingen concentration camp and the story of the dilemma over the signage on the cemetery is retold on Museum Bisingen’s website.
The Jewish historian quoted about the Jackson-Vanik Amendment is Hadas Binyamini, writing in her Jewish Currents story.
Quotes and information about Zev Weiss are from his “In Memoriam” tribute video and obituary.
Viewing numbers for Holocaust are from "NBC-TV Says ‘Holocaust’ Drew 120 Million" in the New York Times.
Details about the reception and impact of "Holocaust" in West Germany are from Sollors.
NBC’s Herbert Schlosser recounted suggesting a new name for Holocaust in his oral history.
You can read Timur Kuran’s "The Inevitability of Future Revolutionary Surprises" in full on JSTOR.
Vaclav Havel’s essay "The Power of the Powerless" can be read in full online.
In his 1987 essay "Meeting Gorbachev," Havel scolded his countrymen.
The original 1969 edition of David Reuben’s "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)" was published by McKay Company Inc. Quotes are from Chapter 8, “Male Homosexuality.”
Reuben’s accolades were recounted in articles.
The speech in which President George Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment is on CNN.
The Wikipedia page is a good overview of the amendment.
Dianne Feinstein’s “too much, too fast, too soon” can be found in Dean E. Murphy’s story.
Bonnie Dow’s analysis of the representation of women on TV comes from her book "Prime-Time Feminism." Her rules for gay characters are in her paper.
Vito Russo’s death tally for queer characters is from his book "The Celluloid Closet."
Jimmy Burrows spoke about his plan in an interview.
Rick Santorum credited Will & Grace in a speech.
Sasha Issenberg’s book on same-sex marriage is "The Engagement."
Martin Booth’s history of the opium poppy is called "Opium: A History."
The Drug Enforcement Administration Museum has a good overview.
You can read Jessica Y. Ho’s "The Contemporary American Drug Overdose Epidemic in International Perspective."
For Lyna Z. Schieber’s research see “Trends and Patterns of Geographic Variation in Opioid Prescribing Practices by State, United States, 2006–2017”.
My account of Paul E. Madden is pieced together. Madden’s quotes are from a pamphlet, it can be viewed on “the Reefer Madness Museum,”. The site dedicates a page to Madden.
You can see Madden displaying bags in Santa Rosa’s Press Democrat.
The story about Madden babysitting is in The Fresno Bee.
For the illegal sales, see the Los Angeles Times, “Narcotics Head Steps In.”
The triplicate-prescription law, is in the official record of the 1939 legislative session.
Archival newspaper articles abound on Nathan Housman’s trial. I’ve quoted from the San Francisco Examiner.
Madden’s letter was published in the April 1939 issue of the California Medical Soceity’s journal.
For a history of the first states, I relied on a report called "History of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs."
My history of Russell Portenoy is from his oral history.
Portenoy’s quote about pain treatment is on page 22 of Barry Meier’s "Pain Killer." His "gift from nature" quote appears in Keefe.
NIDA published a monograph about the 1991 Maryland summit meeting.
For “the number of triplicate states was down to five,” see.
Much of my history of Purdue Pharma is from Barry Meier’s "Pain Killer."
The explanation is drawn from.
The focus-group study commissioned was made public.
The geographic distribution is from.
Sim’s breakdown appears.
Ziedan and Kaestner addressed.
For neglect, see.
Elling’s was titled.
Purdue Pharma’s sales revenue was recounted in a hearing.
For information on the timeline, see the hearing.
Emails from Jeanette Park, can be viewed.
Sackler’s email appears.
The chart is from settlement agreement.
The quote is from a presentation.
The quote about the point system is.
The chart of sales calls is in.
The account is on page 36 of agreement. The account is on page 28.
For Kiang’s calculation, see.
Those details are in piece.
The chart is adapted.
For’s research see Figure 6.
A chart appears.
Okay, whew! That was a lot, right? Basically, I just went through all the notes, uh, for where all the information in the book came from.