Tag: opioid-related deaths

Overprescribing Doctor Linked To Hundreds Of Deaths, Report Says

The doctor’s “brusque and indifferent” prescribing of diamorphine led to the deaths of at least 456 patients between 1989-2000.

A British doctor is making headlines once again, after a report released Wednesday (June 20) concluded that her policy of over-prescribing a powerful pain medication led to hundreds of patient deaths.

Jane Barton, who is now retired, was found guilty of serious professional misconduct in 2010 by the General Medical Council (GMC) for her “excessive, inappropriate and potentially hazardous” prescribing of medication at Gosport War Memorial Hospital on the south coast of England, but was allowed to continue practicing medicine with some limitations.

Although Barton retired the same year, families of the victims, outraged by the decision, have since fought for Barton to be held accountable for her alleged actions.

On Wednesday, the Gosport Independent Panel released findings of a four-year investigation. While the Guardian states that “there is no suggestion that Barton intentionally took lives,” her “brusque and indifferent” prescribing of diamorphine (synthetic heroin) led to the deaths of at least 456 patients between 1989-2000, and potentially shortening the lives of another 200 patients.

The report determined that “there was a disregard for human life and a culture of shortening the lives of a large number of patients,” and that the opioid-prescribing policy under Barton’s direction was “without medical justification.”

“It represents a major crisis when you begin to doubt that the treatment they are being given is in their best interests,” said Rev. James Jones, chair of the independent panel. “It further shatters your confidence when you summon up the courage to complain and then sense that you are being treated as some sort of ‘troublemaker.’”

On the day of the report’s release, British Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt apologized for the deaths “on behalf of the government and the (National Health Service).”

The panel’s report mentions Harold Shipman, Britain’s worst serial killer, “in order to understand the context of events” in Barton’s case.

According to CNN, Shipman was found to have killed 215 of his patients over a 23-year period. According to a review led by High Court Judge Dame Janet Smith, Shipman also administered excessive doses of diamorphine to his patients from 1975 to 1998. He was ultimately sentenced to 15 terms of life imprisonment, according to the latest report. He ultimately died by suicide in his prison cell in 2004.

Still, Janet Barton maintains that she never meant to kill, and that her harmful prescribing was the result of the “excessive and increasing burden” of trying to care for too many patients.

“Throughout my career I have tried to do my very best for all my patients and have had only their interests and well-being at heart,” Barton said in 2010.

View the original article at thefix.com

23 June 2018
Opioid Deaths Have Surpassed Vietnam War Fatalities, Study Says

A new study examined the 15-year period from January 2001 to December 2016 to determine the number of American deaths caused by the opioid crisis.

American deaths as a result of the opioid crisis have surpassed those during the Vietnam War, a new study has found.

According to the Washington Post, less than 1% of American deaths in the year 1968 were due to serving in the Vietnam war. Now, a new study has found that in 2016, 1.5% of deaths were at the hands of opioids.

The study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at the 15-year period from January 2001 to December 2016 to determine the number of American deaths caused by the opioid crisis.

It found that between 2001 and 2016, the number of deaths caused by the opioid crisis rose from 9,489 to 42 ,245—a 345% increase.

According to the study, in 2001, opioids were responsible for 0.4% of deaths, or 1 in 255 people. But 15 years later, in 2016, that rose to 1.5%, or 1 in 65 deaths—a 292% increase. Study authors found that the greatest impact was on those ages 24 to 35, an age group in which 20% of deaths were associated with opioids. Study authors also found that deaths connected to opioids were more prominent in men than women.

In all, study authors estimate that in 2016 alone, nearly 1.7 million years of life were lost in the U.S. population due to the opioid crisis.

“These findings highlight changes in the burden of opioid-related deaths over time and across demographic groups in the United States,” study authors wrote. “They demonstrate the important role of opioid overdose in deaths of adolescents and young adults as well as the disproportionate burden of overdose among men.”

Study findings also indicated that there has been an increase in the number of opioid-related deaths in those 55 and older.

“The relative increase in recent years requires attention, as it could be indicative of an aging population with increasing prevalence of opioid use disorder,” study authors noted. “This is particularly problematic as recent estimates from the United States suggest that the prevalence of opioid misuse among adults aged 50 years and older is expected to double (from 1.2% to 2.4%) between 2004 and 2020.”

Because of the impact on those of younger ages, study authors also indicated that there is a need to put more programs and policies in place.

“Premature death from opioid-related causes imposes an enormous public health burden across the United States,” study authors wrote. “The recent increase in deaths attributable to opioids among those aged 15 to 34 years highlights a need for targeted programs and policies that focus on improved addiction care and harm reduction measures in this high-risk population.”

According to the Post, this research leaned on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, which is thought to underestimate the number of opioid deaths by 20 to 30%, resulting in a “conservative estimate” of the true impact of the crisis.

View the original article at thefix.com

14 June 2018
Fentanyl-Related Deaths Skyrocket In Ohio

“There is nothing that worries me more than synthetic opiates—and what will be the next, more powerful synthetic that hits the street,” said one police official.

Fentanyl is taking over the illicit drug market in the greater Cincinnati area, sparking a 1,000% increase in overdose deaths in Hamilton County.

In 2013, authorities there logged 24 fentanyl-related deaths. Last year, they counted 324, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The drug’s popularity has grown so explosively it’s overshadowed heroin deaths. Last year, the Hamilton County coroner found fentanyl involved in 85% of overdose deaths the office examined, while the county’s crime lab detected the substance in more than 90% of the drugs tested in the first five months of this year.

“Fentanyl and similar synthetic opiates have produced overdoses and deaths in not only unprecedented numbers but previously unimaginable,” Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan told the Ohio paper. “It is no longer a heroin epidemic but a synthetic-opiate epidemic.”

The problem in Ohio mirrors the issue nationwide, Synan said. In 2016, according to a research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, fentanyl was involved in roughly half of opioid-related deaths.

“It’s the small amounts of the extremely deadly substances that are killing people,” Hamilton County coroner Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco told the paper.

Just days after the Cincinnati paper published its report, the Billings Gazette in Montana detailed an apparent uptick in fentanyl-related deaths in the county that houses Fort Peck Indian Reservation. There, officials are bumping up naloxone training efforts and considering reactivating a regional drug task force.

And in May, the Minneapolis Star Tribune detailed a spike in fentanyl-related overdoses in Minnesota, where officials are pushing to treat fatal overdoses as homicides.

Even as the epidemic spreads, officials in Ohio are warning it could get worse as underground chemists start pumping out new analogues of the dangerous drug, some of which could be more potent.

And, as officials elsewhere have warned, fentanyl is starting to pop up in cocaine and meth supplies.

“The introduction of synthetic opiates like fentanyl has killed tens of thousands of Americans and should be seen as the country’s most pressing health, national security issue and social crisis we face right now,” Synan said. “There is nothing that worries me more than synthetic opiates—and what will be the next, more powerful synthetic that hits the street.”

View the original article at thefix.com

11 June 2018
Opioids To Blame For 1 in 5 Young Adult Deaths

Opioid-related deaths were responsible for 1.7 million lost years of life in 2016, according to a new study.

In 2016, opioids were involved in 20% of deaths of young Americans ages 24 to 35, according to a new study.

The findings, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WONDER Multiple Cause of Death Online Database, which shows the cause of death, age and sex of people who pass away. Researchers looked at the years between 2001 and 2016.

During that time period, deaths that were attributable to opioids increased 292%. In 2016, opioid-related deaths were responsible for 1.7 million lost years of life, according to analysis by the researchers.

Despite the fact that there has been a lot of attention given to the effects of opioids on middle-aged Americans, the impact was most profound for younger people. In addition to the high death rates for people in their 20s and 30s, opioids caused 12.4% of deaths of youth aged 15 to 24.

“Premature death from opioid-related causes imposes an enormous public health burden across the United States,” researchers wrote. “The recent increase in deaths attributable to opioids among those aged 15 to 34 years highlights a need for targeted programs and policies that focus on improved addiction care and harm reduction measures in this high-risk population.”

The opioid-related death rate for people aged 25-34 nearly quadrupled between 2001 and 2016.

“I think that the fact that one out of every five deaths among young adults is from an opioid, if not shocking, should at least create pause for people to realize how huge of an impact this early loss of life is having,” Tara Gomes, an epidemiologist and researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, who led the study, told Tonic.

Overall, researchers found that opioids were responsible for 1.5% of all deaths in the United States, or about 1 in 65. That means that opioids resulted in more lost years of life in 2016 than high blood pressure, HIV/AIDs and pneumonia. In 2001, just 1 in 255 deaths were attributable to opioids.

Men were more likely than woman to die from an opioid overdose, researchers found. In fact, men made up 67.5% of all opioid-related deaths in 2016.

While young people had the highest percentage of opioid-related deaths, the sharpest percentage increase was among older Americans. People over 55 made up 18.4% of opioid deaths in 2016. Between 2001 and 2016 the opioid-related death rate for people age 55 to 64 increased 754%; for people age 65 and older it increased 635%.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 June 2018