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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Overdose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Overdose. Show all posts

Monday, June 21, 2021

Drug Overdose Deaths Up 30% in Pandemic Year, Government Data Show

Joyce Frieden
MedPage Today 
Originally published 1 June 2021

Mortality from all types of drug overdoses increased by a whopping 30% over a 1-year period, Nora Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), reported at the FDA Science Forum.

Data from the National Center for Health Statistics from October 2019 to October 2020 shows that mortality from overdoses from all types of drugs increased 30%, from 70,669 deaths in October 2019 to 91,862 deaths in October 2020, "and I think that that is a number that is very, very chilling," Volkow said at the forum. Among those overdose deaths in both years, more than half came from synthetic opiates -- "the most notable presence is fentanyl," she said. There was also a 46% increase in overdose deaths from other psychostimulants, mainly methamphetamine, and a 38% increase in deaths from cocaine overdoses.

Having any kind of substance use disorder (SUD) also affects the risk of getting COVID-19, she continued. According to a study done by Volkow and colleagues, "Regardless of the specific type of substance use disorder -- legal or illegal -- there was a significant increase in the likelihood of people that have a substance use disorder to become infected," she said. Their study, which included electronic health records from 7.5 million patients with an SUD diagnosis, found that patients with a recent SUD diagnosis -- within the past year -- were nearly nine times more likely to contract COVID-19 than patients without that diagnosis; for those with opioid use disorder in particular, their odds of contracting COVID were 10 times higher.

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Drug Companies’ Liability for the Opioid Epidemic

Rebecca L. Haffajee and Michelle M. Mello
N Engl J Med 2017; 377:2301-2305
December 14, 2017
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1710756

Here is an excerpt:

Opioid products, they alleged, were defectively designed because companies failed to include safety mechanisms, such as an antagonist agent or tamper-resistant formulation. Manufacturers also purportedly failed to adequately warn about addiction risks on drug packaging and in promotional activities. Some claims alleged that opioid manufacturers deliberately withheld information about their products’ dangers, misrepresenting them as safer than alternatives.

These suits faced formidable barriers that persist today. As with other prescription drugs, persuading a jury that an opioid is defectively designed if the Food and Drug Administration approved it is challenging. Furthermore, in most states, a drug manufacturer’s duty to warn about risks is limited to issuing an adequate warning to prescribers, who are responsible for communicating with patients. Finally, juries may resist laying legal responsibility at the manufacturer’s feet when the prescriber’s decisions and the patient’s behavior contributed to the harm. Some individuals do not take opioids as prescribed or purchase them illegally. Companies may argue that such conduct precludes holding manufacturers liable, or at least should reduce damages awards.

One procedural strategy adopted in opioid litigation that can help overcome defenses based on users’ conduct is the class action suit, brought by a large group of similarly situated individuals. In such suits, the causal relationship between the companies’ business practices and the harm is assessed at the group level, with the focus on statistical associations between product use and injury. The use of class actions was instrumental in overcoming tobacco companies’ defenses based on smokers’ conduct. But early attempts to bring class actions against opioid manufacturers encountered procedural barriers. Because of different factual circumstances surrounding individuals’ opioid use and clinical conditions, judges often deemed proposed class members to lack sufficiently common claims.

The article is here.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

After their children died of overdoses, these families chose to tell the truth

By Alexandra Rockey Fleming
The Washington Post
Originally posted August 1, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

As opioid abuse rages and its legacy of overdose deaths continues to climb, more bereaved families are responding by publicly exposing addiction as the demon. Swapping openness for ambiguity in death notices — “died after a long struggle with addiction” replaces “died suddenly at home” — they are challenging the stigma and shame often bound up in substance abuse. Maybe more important, they’re sounding alarms about the far-reaching grasp of addiction.

“We want people to know that this can happen to anyone,” says Rosemary Roche, the mother of Jordan, who died last year at age 21. “Nobody is immune.”

The article is here.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Sharp Rise in Drug Overdoses Among U.S. Women: CDC

By Steven Reinberg
MedicineNet.com
Originally posted July 2, 2013

The rate of fatal overdoses of prescription painkillers and other drugs among U.S. women quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, federal officials reported Tuesday.

Long thought of as primarily a male problem, drug addiction is increasingly affecting women, and the new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 42 women in the United States die each day from prescription drug overdoses.

"Prescription drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed in women," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said during a noon press conference. "Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are dying from overdoses at rates we have never seen before."

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Other statistics, based on 2010 data:

  • Suicides from these drugs accounted for 34 percent of all suicides among women, compared with 8 percent among men.
  • More than 940,000 women were seen in emergency departments for drug misuse or abuse.
  • More than 6,600 women, or 18 women every day, died from a prescription painkiller overdose.
  • Narcotic painkillers accounted for four times more deaths among women than deaths linked to cocaine and heroin combined.
  • More than 200,000 emergency department visits were for misuse or abuse of these drugs among women -- about one every three minutes.

The entire story is here.