On this edition of Parallax Views, former CDC epidemiologist and physician Dr. Charles LeBaron joins us to discuss his explosive new book Greed to Do Good: The Untold Story of CDC’s Disastrous War on Opioids. Drawing on his rare vantage point as a public health insider (with 28 years' experience at the CDC), clinician, and former pain patient, Dr. LeBaron argues that the CDC’s 2016 opioid guidelines—meant to reduce overdose deaths—actually worsened the crisis.

We explore how flawed data, political pressure, and a rigid, arguably even at times psuedo-scientific approach led to a policy that criminalized both doctors and patients, neglected the realities of chronic pain, and contributed to the ongoing epidemic of overdose deaths. Dr. LeBaron explains why the distinction between addiction and use of opioids as a legitimate chronic pain treatment matter, how voluntary guidelines became de facto law, and why Dr. LeBaron still sees value in the CDC as an institution and is not using the book to delegitimize it (ie: critique isn't alway for tearing down, but calling for reform)..

This is a powerful and challenging conversation about public health, institutional accountability, and the human cost of well-intentioned but disastrous policy.