Deaths from Fentanyl Overdoses Double In A Single Year

Deaths involving the opioid painkiller fentanyl more than doubled in a single year in the United States, according to a new report. In 2014, 4,200 people in the U.S. died from overdoses involving fentanyl, up from 1,905 people in 2013, the report found. The rate of fentanyl deaths increased from 6 deaths per 1 million people to 13 deaths per 1 million people during that one-year period. The report, from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, used a new method to examine drug overdose deaths in the United States. Traditionally, government researchers have used specific codes that are placed on death certificates to analyze causes of death in the population. But these codes do not always let researchers know which specific drug was involved in a death —sometimes, the same code is used to classify deaths from several different drugs. For example, there is a single code to indicate all deaths from “natural and semisynthetic opioid analgesics,” which include deaths from overdoses on both oxycodone and morphine. So in the new report, the researchers developed a way to analyze the actual text on death certificates, including notes written by the medical examiner or coroner. This method allowed them to identify specific drugs that were mentioned as being involved in the cause of death. [America’s Opioid-Use Epidemic: 5 Startling Facts] Using this method, the researchers identified the top 10 drugs in...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news