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Tag: fentanyl overdoses

  • Ohio County Overdose Wave Leaves At Least 3 Dead

    Ohio County Overdose Wave Leaves At Least 3 Dead

    Officials were alarmed when 23 emergency calls involving suspected overdose cases were received in the county in under 24 hours.

    Police officers in Hamilton County reported an unusual spike in overdose cases last weekend that was likely due to a batch of methamphetamine mixed with fentanyl that was sold as ecstasy pills.

    As many as 10 of the overdose cases resulted in death, though the coroner’s office has yet to confirm if overdose was the root cause in all the area deaths that occurred since June 19.

    Regardless, officials were alarmed when 23 emergency calls involving suspected overdose cases were received in the county in under 24 hours. Overall, they fielded 54 calls from early Friday to early Monday.

    On Saturday, the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition sent out an alert to the local populace due to the high number of overdoses. Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan, a co-chair of the Heroin Coalition, believes that the root cause is the highly potent opioid fentanyl.

    “Late in May, Tom Fallon, investigative commander for the heroin task force, said investigators learned that a drug supplier was mixing fentanyl with meth and then adding red, yellow or blue food coloring and pressing the mixture into a pill form to be sold as ecstasy,” reports The Cincinnati Enquirer. “The task force has also found other fake pressed-pills sold on the street as pain pills in recent months that were tainted with fentanyl.”

    Fallon also noted that there’s been a similar problem with crack cocaine being mixed with fentanyl. This has been an increasing issue across the country as drug sellers learn that adding small amounts of the opioid to a batch of drugs can seriously enhance the effects.

    However, since fentanyl is up to 100 times more potent than morphine, just a tiny bit too much can result in a dangerous overdose. Mixing drugs also always increases that risk.

    This problem has led experts to name fentanyl as the key driver in a “third wave” of the U.S. opioid epidemic. A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that deaths involving the drug have doubled every year since 2013.

    Ohio has seen a surge in these kinds of overdoses since April, particularly on the weekends. Because individuals who are addicted to opioids generally can’t wait until the weekend, this tells authorities like Synan that many of the victims are not addicted to this type of drug.

    In fact, those who have not built up a tolerance to opioids are especially vulnerable to fatal overdose if they take fentanyl, which is why fentanyl is only prescribed to individuals who are already opioid-tolerant.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Unfounded Fears Linger About Accidental Exposure to Fentanyl

    Unfounded Fears Linger About Accidental Exposure to Fentanyl

    Lawmakers have introduced a new bill that perpetuates fears about fentanyl that many physicians consider unfounded.

    Though a wealth of information has been made public about the relatively low risk presented by accidental exposure to the synthetic opioid, fentanyl, lawmakers, law enforcement and media outlets continue to issue warnings and even propose legislation to provide safeguards to prevent overdose.

    A recent article in Reason cited a bill put forward by a bipartisan group of Congressmen that would allocate federal money to local police for drug screening devices that was spurred in part by concern over exposure to fentanyl. 

    It also quoted recent comments from a Toledo, Ohio newspaper and New York State police chief, both of which voiced concern over the alleged dangers presented by “even a minute trace of the drug.” Such fears are contrary to countless studies and testimony by medical professionals and health groups, which have stated that casual skin exposure to fentanyl presents little chance of significant harm than any other drugs.

    The bill, introduced by Representatives Conor Lamb (D-PA), David Joyce (R-OH) and David Trone (D-MD), would establish a new grant program at the Department of Justice that would assist local law enforcement agencies in securing interdiction devices—portable chemical screening technology—that would help officers determine the presence of fentanyl and other drugs at a crime scene.

    “This legislation will increase the safety of our officers and will streamline the substance testing process, providing real-time results to reduce the backlog in the legal system,” said Lamb in a statement.

    While well-intended, the bill perpetuates fears about fentanyl that many physicians consider unfounded, according to Reason. Coverage in the New York Times noted that while fentanyl and carfentanil are dangerous opioids, the drugs must be deliberately consumed, not touched or inhaled by accident, to present a health risk.

    “I would say it’s extraordinarily improbable that a first responder would be poisoned by an ultra-potent opioid,” said Dr. David Juurlink, a clinical researcher based in Toronto. “I don’t say it can’t happen. But for it to happen would require extraordinary circumstances, and those would be very hard to achieve.”

    Despite testimony of that nature, fear about exposure to fentanyl continues to find its way into the public sphere. The Toledo Blade called for immediate passage of Lamb’s bill, stating “police, firefighters and other first responders are in jeopardy if they come into contact with even a minute trace of the drug.”

    And in a February 2019 interview, John Anton, police chief for DeWitt, New York, said on WRVO Public Media that he feared his officers are “getting exposed to fentanyl, getting it on their clothes, bringing it home to their families, getting it on their boots and so on.”

    As many medical professionals have noted, such fears are largely unfounded.

    “I want to tell first responders, ‘Look, you’re safe,’” said Dr. Jeremy S. Faust, an emergency doctor at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, in the New York Times coverage. “You can touch these people. You can interact with them. You can go on and do the heroic lifesaving work that you do for anyone else.”

    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

  • Clark Gable III Died from Accidental Fentanyl, Oxycodone Overdose

    Clark Gable III Died from Accidental Fentanyl, Oxycodone Overdose

    The grandson of Hollywood legend Clark Gable was found unresponsive in his home on February 22.

    Actor and television host Clark Gable III’s untimely death at the age of 30 was due to an accidental overdose of fentanyl, as well as oxycodone and alprazolam (Xanax).

    Several news sources, including TMZ and the New York Daily News, revealed that an autopsy report from the medical examiner’s office in Dallas County, Texas, determined that Gable, who was best known as the host of Cheaters, died on February 22, 2019 from the “combined effects” of the three drugs. 

    TMZ also quoted its conversation with Cheaters producer Bobby Goldstein, who said that Gable’s drug use was known on set.

    Gable III—the grandson of Hollywood legend Clark Gable—was found unresponsive in his home in Dallas by his girlfriend on the morning of February 22 and transported to an area hospital, where according to the medical examiner’s report, he died at 9:11 a.m.

    At the time of his death, Gable’s passing was credited to undisclosed causes, but in an interview with Radar Online, former girlfriend Heather Chadwell said that they both struggled with addiction during their relationship.

    “We were together on-and-off for several years, and during that time, we went through a lot,” she told Radar. Chadwell also noted that after their split, Gable called her from the hospital, where he had undergone surgery to treat a stab wound that caused one of his lungs to collapse.

    Sources on the set of Cheaters, which Gable hosted in its 13th and 14th season, said that Gable’s drug use concerned some crew members to the point that they spoke to producer Goldstein about his health.

    Goldstein told TMZ on April 12 that he addressed the issue with Gable, but was told that there was no cause for concern.

    At the time of his death, Gable, who had a daughter with his girlfriend Summer in 2017, had either completed or was working on acting roles in several independent features, and was reportedly compiling a documentary about his grandfather, who starred in Gone with the Wind. 

    Gable is the most recent celebrity whose death has been attributed to fentanyl.

    Musicians Prince and Tom Petty both succumbed to overdoses caused by the powerful synthetic opioid, as did hip-hop musicians Mac Miller and Lil Peep and Jay Bennett of the band Wilco.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Naloxone-Based Antidote For Fentanyl, Synthetic Opioids Is In Development

    Naloxone-Based Antidote For Fentanyl, Synthetic Opioids Is In Development

    The naloxone-based antidote has already shown promise in tests involving animal subjects.

    The opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone, or Narcan, has proven useful in preventing fatalities from the use of heroin or prescription opioids.

    But its duration in the human body – about 30 to 60 minutes – is less effective in countering the effects of powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl, which can remain in an individual’s system for hours and may require multiple doses of naloxone.

    But researchers have begun work on a naloxone-based antidote that may outlast synthetic opioids, and which has already shown promise in tests involving animal subjects.

    The results of the test were presented in Orlando, Florida at a meeting of the American Chemical Society on March 31, 2019; there, researchers from Duquesne University, the Allegency Health Network Research Institute and the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center showcased their development of a naloxone-based antidote that used microscopic particles called nanoparticles to deliver a combination of naloxone molecules and a biodegradable polymer, or plastic, called polyactic acid.

    As Science News noted, once introduced to an individual’s system, water and enzymes in the body dissolve the nanoparticles and slowly release the naloxone.

    According to the researchers, a single dose using this delivery system proved effective in countering the effects of morphine in tests involving mice for up to 96 hours. 

    Reseacher Saadyah Averick of the Allegheny Health Network Research was quoted as saying that the next phase of testing will involve actual synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl and carfentanil, as well as increased testing to determine if the antidote can prevent a test animal from undergoing overdose. 

    Data from the National Vital Statistic System’s record of all U.S.-based deaths found that overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids had surpassed overdose fatalities caused by prescription opioids.

    A study published in the May 1, 2018 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that of the 42,249 opioid-related deaths in 2016, 19,413 involved synthetic opioids, while 17,087 were due to prescription opioids and 15,469.

    More than 79% of synthetic opioid deaths also involved another drug or alcohol, with another opioid and heroin listed as the most commonly co-involved substances (47.9% and 29.8%, respectively).

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Obama Administration Failed To Act On Fentanyl Crisis

    Obama Administration Failed To Act On Fentanyl Crisis

    Health experts reportedly urged the administration to declare a public health emergency during the drug’s rise in 2016.

    The Obama administration was warned about the spiking rates of fentanyl overdoses in 2016 but took no action, according to a report in The Washington Post.

    A group of 11 national health experts pleaded with high-level officials in the administration in an urgent letter to declare a public health emergency in response to the influx of new, extremely potent opioids on the illicit drug market. The letter addressed then-President Obama’s appointed drug czar and the chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    “The fentanyl crisis represents an extraordinary public health challenge—and requires an extraordinary public health response,” it read.

    The opioid epidemic had been ramping up for years, but new policies cracking down on the over-prescription of drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin could not properly combat the scourge of illegal fentanyl that was being shipped into the country from Mexico and China.

    Cities were now contending with mass overdose cases as street heroin became contaminated with fentanyl, making it many times more potent.

    The administration declined to act, according to the Post.

    Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more powerful than heroin and is largely responsible for the spikes in overdose deaths from 2015 to 2017 that shocked the nation. In 2017, fentanyl was involved in nearly as many overdose deaths as heroin and prescription opioids combined.

    While the Obama administration did take some steps to address the increasing threat of opioids in 2016 and early 2017, any news over the dire warnings about the drugs was overshadowed by the unexpected results of the 2016 presidential election.

    By this time, fentanyl overdose rates had risen by 800% in the state of Maryland over the space of four years.

    In 2017, President Donald Trump declared the long-overdue national health emergency over the still-raging opioid epidemic. However, other than making the declaration, the Trump administration has taken little action on the problem, according to a 2018 report by the Government Accountability Office.

    While the CDC has issued new guidelines for prescribing opioid painkillers like OxyContin and increased funding for addiction treatment is beginning to see positive results, local police and hospitals are still struggling to cope with overdose cases caused by fentanyl.

    Unfortunately, those hit hardest by fentanyl are those with addiction disorders and chronic pain patients—many of whom turned to heroin as prescription opioids became harder to access as the government cracked down on opioids. The stigma of addiction has stood in the way of many individuals who need treatment. 

    Luke J. Nasta, executive director of the largest drug treatment facility on Staten Island, compared it to the AIDS epidemic of the ’80s.

    “There was a stigma about being gay,” he said. “There is also a stigma about being addicted to drugs. The entire society is suffering and the government can’t seem to get their arms around this epidemic.”

    View the original article at thefix.com