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Tag: fentanyl overdose deaths

  • West Virginia, Ohio Top National Drug Overdose Death Rates

    West Virginia, Ohio Top National Drug Overdose Death Rates

    Midwest states were among those with the lowest overdose death rates in the country.

    Statistics from the CDC show that drug overdose death rates in the United States rose nearly 10% between 2016 and 2017, with the highest death rates occurring in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southern regions of the country.

    Though all points in the U.S. saw significant increases during this time period, three states experienced the highest overdose death rates—West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky—as well as the District of Columbia. Opioids were involved in more than half of the overdose fatalities.

    As shown by the CDC data, drug overdose deaths in the United States rose 9.6% between 2016 and 2017; the death toll from drug overdoses reached 70,237. Opioids were involved in 67.8% of those deaths, and of that number, the CDC stated that synthetic opioids other than methadone were the primary cause of death.

    Big Increases

    Twenty-three states saw what the CDC described as “significant” increases in drug overdose deaths during this time period, including Alabama, California, Illinois, Maine, New York and Wisconsin. Though certain states had substantially high increases from 2016 to 2017—death rates in Maine rose 19.9% during this period—the number of deaths per year in these states were actually lower on a year-to-year basis than other states.

    For example, Ohio’s death rate percentage between 2016 and 2017 was 18.4%, but the actual number of deaths in that state during those years, when adjusted for age and size of population, was significantly higher in the Buckeye State (4,329 per 100,000 in 2016 and 5,111 in 2017) than in Maine (353 per 100,000 in 2016 and 424 in 2017).

    When age and number of residents was factored into the individual states’ rates, Ohio ranked second in highest death rates, with 46.3 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2017; it was preceded by West Virginia (57.8 per 100,000) and followed by the District of Columbia (44 per 100,000)—which actually saw a decrease, percentage wise, between 2016 and 2017—and Kentucky (37.2 per 100,000). 

    The Lowest Death Rates

    The states with the lowest death rates in 2017 were North Dakota, Nebraska and South Dakota, each of which either dropped or experienced death rates below 6% between 2016 and 2017.

    Response to the epidemic by state-run agencies has made improvements in death rates for 2018 and beyond.

    The New York Times noted that areas in Ohio, including the city of Dayton, have utilized federal and state grants to help reduce opioid prescriptions, expand access to the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone, and increase addiction treatment to residents and prison inmates. As a result, emergency room visits dropped by more than 60% between January 2017 and June of 2018.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Heroin Is Being Replaced With Fentanyl Across East Coast, Midwest

    Heroin Is Being Replaced With Fentanyl Across East Coast, Midwest

    The surge of fentanyl availability in these parts of the country is putting long-time heroin users at risk for overdose. 

    In some places in the United States, heroin is becoming scarce or has even disappeared entirely.

    Throughout the East Coast and in parts of the Midwest—where heroin fueled addiction, overdose, medical injury and death—availability of the drug is receding. Instead, the New York Times reports, it is the deadly drug fentanyl that is within reach.

    Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid, said to be able to cause overdose and death with just a small amount. In medical settings, fentanyl is used only for the most intractable and unbearable pain, such as late stage cancer. Fentanyl is cheaper to produce than heroin, while giving more bang for the buck.

    For those who use it, knowingly or unknowingly, fentanyl is “more addictive than heroin,” reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. Many who use fentanyl find that afterward, heroin alone is not strong enough to stop all their withdrawal symptoms and cravings. 

    Looking at a concentrated area, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released a 2017 report on Pennsylvania. The report stated that in Philadelphia, fentanyl was found in 84% of 1,217 fatal overdoses in 2018, and in 67% of the state’s 5,456 overdose deaths in 2017.

    The surge of fentanyl availability has affected long-time heroin users who have been able to manage their drug use so that it does not kill them, the Times reports.

    Along the East Coast and in the Midwest, people with long-term heroin addiction who have turned to fentanyl are dying of overdoses, unable to manage the potency and unpredictability of fentanyl exposure.

    Narcan (naloxone), the opioid overdose-reversing drug, works by blocking opioid receptors in the brain. Narcan can last for 30 to 90 minutes in the body.

    Fentanyl lasts for hours in the body. For some people overdosing on fentanyl, multiple doses of Narcan are required over a period of time, and it still may not be enough to save the person’s life.

    Researchers are working on a naloxone-based antidote that might be able to sustain prolonged results in the body, even blocking the effects of a fentanyl overdose for hours.

    A study presented at a meeting of The American Chemical Society by the Allegheny Health Network Research Institute and the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center showed promising results in lab animals. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Dramatic Rise In Fentanyl Deaths Marks Third Wave Of Opioid Crisis

    Dramatic Rise In Fentanyl Deaths Marks Third Wave Of Opioid Crisis

    From 2011 to 2016, Black Americans experienced the sharpest rise in fentanyl-related deaths with a 141% increase.

    Fentanyl overdose rates have been rising at very sharp rates among minorities, including African Americans and Hispanic Americans, according to new data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

    The data looked at fentanyl overdose rates between 2011 and 2016. Researchers found that the fentanyl overdose rate for African Americans rose the fastest out of any ethnic group—increasing, on average, 141% each year.

    Hispanic Americans also showed a dramatic increase of 118% each year. Non-Hispanic whites saw their rates of fentanyl overdoses increase 61% each year, on average. 

    African Americans and Hispanic Americans still have lower overdose rates overall—5.6 and 2.5 deaths per 100,000 respectively. Whites, by comparison, continue to have the highest fentanyl overdose rates at 7.7 deaths per 100,000.

    However, lead study author, Merianne Rose Spencer, said it’s important to note that the overdose rate for Black Americans is rising at more than double the rate of white Americans, according to The Washington Post. 

    Overall, the data showed shocking increases in fentanyl overdoses in all demographics. 

    “Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2013, the number of deaths increased every quarter. From 2013 through 2014, the death rate more than doubled, nearly doubled again from 2014 through 2015, and more than doubled again from 2015 through 2016,” report authors wrote. 

    The CDC’s mortality statistics branch’s chief, Robert Anderson, said that the severity of the fentanyl overdose crisis is clear. “We’re seeing it across the board,” he said.

    The rate of overdose accelerated in 2014, when, according to Ohio Senator Rob Portman, fentanyl “came on with a vengeance.” “We were making progress, starting to get this stuff in the right direction, and the fentanyl just overwhelmed the systems,” he said this week. 

    Although the recently released data didn’t cover 2017 or 2018, there are indications that the pace of increase of overdoses has slowed in the last two years. Preliminary numbers show that 70,424 died by August of 2018, compared with 72,287 deaths by November of 2017. 

    Anderson said the numbers suggest that the rate has plateaued, but is not yet truly reversing. “We would look at that and say that’s pretty flat. We’d be reluctant to call it a real decline,” he said.

    Still, Portman said that the numbers show a step in the right direction, particularly after a long period of dramatic increases. 

    “It is a very significant story that for the first time in eight years we’re not seeing an increase in overdose deaths,” he said. “We feel like it’s still unacceptably high, but we’re cautiously optimistic that we’ve finally turned the corner after eight years.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • China Agrees To Increase Fight Against Fentanyl

    China Agrees To Increase Fight Against Fentanyl

    China was labeled the “primary source” of fentanyl in the United States in a 2016 intelligence report by the Drug Enforcement Agency.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to crack down on trafficking and manufacturing of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl as part of larger negotiations between the United States and the Asian superpower.

    Speaking after a dinner meeting on December 1, 2018 between Xi and President Donald Trump at the Group of 20 meeting in Buenos Aires, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a statement that China will enforce stricter rules in regard to the drug and work more closely with US law enforcement.

    Trump praised Xi’s decision to reporters aboard Air Force One, calling it a “game changer” for the American people. 

    China was labeled the “primary source” of fentanyl in the United States in a 2016 intelligence report by the Drug Enforcement Agency, which further claimed that production of the drug – which was the cause of death in nearly half of the more than 70,000 overdose mortalities in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – and its analogues faced lax regulation in China, allowing for widespread production and sale through the internet.

    The Chinese government has attempted to correct the situation through arrests of drug traffickers and seizure of analogues, but its top drug official, Yu Haibin, told reporters in 2017 that there was “little evidence” that the country was producing the chemicals used to create fentanyl.

    Congressional investigations in 2018 found that Chinese opioid manufacturers were easily exploiting loopholes in the US Postal Service to ship large quantities of fentanyl and other drugs to the US, which prompted lawmakers from both political parties to press Trump on making fentanyl part of the upcoming meeting with China to avert a looming trade war between the two countries

    At the December 1 dinner, Trump told reporters in the room that he would address these concerns as part of his conversation with President Xi. As Bloomberg News noted, Wang, the Chinese Foreign Minister, later said the country will not only “tighten supervision of fentanyl and revise rules on the drug” but also work more closely with US law enforcement. Wang also said that the country would impose stiffer penalties on fentanyl traffickers.

    “What he will be doing to fentanyl could be a game changer for the United States and what fentanyl is doing to our country in terms of killing people,” said Trump at the press conference aboard Air Force One. “If [traffickers] get caught, they have the highest level of punishment.”

    View the original article at thefix.com