'The Crime of the Century' Full Cast List: Meet Lenny Bernstein, Anna Lembke, Andrew Kolodny and others from HBO documentary
Academy award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney's new four-hour-long documentary has already garnered rave reviews from critics and experts for its brilliant and shocking portrayal of the USA's opioid epidemic. The two-part HBO documentary revolves around the reckless distribution and abuse of synthetic opiates by Big Pharma.
"A searing indictment of Big Pharma and the political operatives and government regulations that enable over-production, reckless distribution and abuse of synthetic opiates," reads the IMDb description for the documentary. 'The Crime of the Century' will premiere on May 10, 2021, on HBO and will also be available for streaming on HBO Max. Read on to find out more about the important personalities featured in the documentary - ranging from whistleblowers, journalists, authors to health experts.
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Patrick Radden Keefe
The Massachusetts-based writer and investigative journalist is famous for writing a book named ‘Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty’ which discussed how The Sackler Family was responsible for making and marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis. Apart from being an author, he has written extensively for many publications including The New Yorker, Slate, and The New York Times Magazine. He also won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award (nonfiction) for writing ‘Say Nothing’.
Lenny Bernstein
Bernstein is a journalist from The Washington Post who works in the health and medicine domain. Prior to joining Washington Post as an editor for the National desk, he worked as a reporter for the Courant and Los Angeles Times.
Sari Horwitz
A native of Tuscon, Arizona, Horwitz is a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning member of The Washington Post’s investigation unit. The senior journalist has been covering the US Department of Justice for The Washington Post since 2012. According to the official website of Pulitzer, she has received two dozen local awards, including the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild grand prize for writing three times and the Morton Mintz investigative writing award.
Scott Higham
An investigative reporter from The Washington Post, Scott Higham has been associated with the publication since 2000. He has also worked for the Baltimore Sun, the Miami Herald, and the Allentown Morning Call in his illustrious career. He has won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize on two occasions and has more than 12 awards to his name.
Andrew Kolodny
Dr Kolodny is the Medical Director of Opioid Policy Research at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. His work primarily revolves around families and communities affected by the opioid and heroin crisis. He also works as an executive director for Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, an organization whose aim is to reduce morbidity and mortality caused by overprescription of opioid analgesics.
Anna Lembke
Psychiatrist and author Anna Lembke is the current Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University. She specializes in the opioid epidemic and has authored several books on the topic.
Barry Meier
Barry Meier is a former New York Times journalist who worked in the domain of public policy, business health and safety. He is also the writer of the book 'Pain Killer: A Wonder Drug's Trail of Addiction and Death'.
Some of the other notable personalities appearing in the documentary include Los Angeles Times columnist David Lazarus, former DEA administrator Joe Rannazzisi, physician Art Van Zee among others.