Pharmland: How a Small-Town Opioid Booster Became a Big-Time Public Health Threat

Ralph Abraham’s forgotten record on opioids, Medicaid, race, and self-dealing is far more alarming than his anti-vaccine posturing.

Preface | Abrahamic Flaws

In Mangham, a small village in northeast Louisiana where Dr. Ralph Lee Abraham, Jr. built his career,1 everyone has a story to tell about their most notable and celebrated native son. For years, Abraham served as one of Richland Parish’s only physicians, operating his medical practice out of a small brick building near the intersection of US Highway 425 and Louisiana Highway 132.

In America’s patriarchal popular imagination, the “country doctor” is almost always an honorable, humble, and deeply respected man. He may not have attended the fanciest medical school or felt comfortable in a big city, but somehow, he was a specialist in everything and a friend to everyone.

Before he became known as “Doc,” Ralph Abraham was a farmer. Like nearly everyone in Richland Parish, Abraham grew up on the family farm. After high school, he…