Answer Addiction

Tag: Robert Redfield

  • CDC Director: I Almost Lost My Son To Fentanyl

    CDC Director: I Almost Lost My Son To Fentanyl

    “It’s important for society to embrace and support families who are fighting to win the battle of addiction—because stigma is the enemy of public health.”

    The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told a private audience last week that the opioid crisis hits close to home for him because his son nearly died after taking cocaine contaminated with fentanyl.

    “For me, it’s personal. I almost lost one of my children from it,” Dr. Robert Redfield Jr. told the annual conference of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, according to CBS News and the Associated Press.

    The AP saw a video of Redfield’s speech, which was given on Thursday in New Orleans. According to AP researchers, Redfield’s 37-year-old son was charged with possession in 2016, but the outcome of the case was not public record.

    Redfield declined to discuss the incident more in depth, but he did release the following statement: “It’s important for society to embrace and support families who are fighting to win the battle of addiction—because stigma is the enemy of public health.”

    During the speech, Redfield was outlining his priorities for the CDC. He said that since becoming director in March, the opioid crisis has been a top priority because it is “the public health crisis of our time.”

    Dr. Umair Shah, the head of Houston’s county health department, said that Redfield’s admission was a powerful statement. “It was definitely an intimate moment that grabbed the audience of public health professionals,” said Shah, who just finished a term as president of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

    “It was a close-to-home story, and he spoke quite personally,” Shah told The Washington Post. Shah said that it’s relatively uncommon for healthcare providers to talk about their own personal experience with public health issues, but that doing so can be a powerful way to connect with patients.

    “We don’t want to be seen as too vulnerable or too unprofessional,” Shah said. “And here he is sharing such an intimate story.”

    Redfield’s background is in infectious disease and most of his professional work has been done around HIV, a condition that was stigmatized in much the same way that addiction is today.

    Once isolated to the heroin supply, fentanyl is increasingly being used to cut other drugs, including cocaine. In addition, fentanyl is increasingly being abused on its own, rather than being mixed with other drugs. In 2016, the drug was found to be present in 46% of opioid-related overdose deaths.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Opioid Crisis “More Deadly” Than AIDS Epidemic, CDC Director Says

    Opioid Crisis “More Deadly” Than AIDS Epidemic, CDC Director Says

    CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield discussed the parallels between the crises and his plans to combat opioids during a recent interview. 

    Robert Redfield has only been the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since March, but in that time he has made his stance on the opioid crisis known.

    Redfield, 66, tells The Washington Times that the opioid crisis will be worse than the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, which he was also involved in fighting. “I would say the opioids-fueled epidemic is clearly already more deadly than the AIDS epidemic ever was,” he told the Times.

    According to Redfield, the CDC is working with pharmacies and states to keep up with the opioid epidemic in real time and collect overdose death data as quickly as possible. He says the goal is to release the figures for 2017 in the fall of 2018. 

    The most recent data, from 2016, has overdose deaths at 42,000. The Times notes that some researchers predict that the newest data will show that overdose deaths have passed the 48,000 HIV/AIDS deaths in 1995 which was the most fatal year of that epidemic.

    Redfield says that when it comes to annual rates, drug overdose deaths have already overtaken those of the HIV/AIDS crisis. “If you look at all overdose deaths, not just opioids deaths, we’re over 60,000 now,” he told the Times.

    The number of deaths isn’t the only similarity Redfield sees between the two epidemics. He tells the Times that with both, there have been empathy gaps, meaning people initially saw the diseases as something that happened because of dangerous behavior.

    “It’s a medical condition. It’s not a moral choice,” Redfield told the Times. He added that as with the HIV/AIDS crisis, combating the opioid crisis will take new scientific innovations and “public health efforts.”

    In June, Redfield told the Wall Street Journal that the CDC would be increasing efforts to fight the opioid crisis. He stated the organization would be developing new guidelines for opioid prescriptions for acute pain, as well as introducing a new system to track emergency department data. 

    Redfield also told the Wall Street Journal that he has personal experience with the opioid crisis, as a close family member had struggled with opioid use. “I think part of my understanding of the epidemic has come from seeing it not just as a public-health person and not just as a doctor,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “It is something that has impacted me also at a personal level.”

    Redfield also called stigma the “enemy of public health” and stated that it’s vital to find “a path to destigmatize” opioid use.

    “We were able to do it to some degree for HIV, and I think pretty successfully, but it’s not over,” he said.

    View the original article at thefix.com