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 The news comes through a series of reports from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, which showed that a total of 63,000
people died from drug overdoses in 2016, up 21 percent from 2015.
Opioid-related overdoses surged 28 percent, killing 42,249 people,
mostly in the 25-to-54 age group.
“The escalating growth of opioid deaths is downright frightening –
and it's getting worse,” John Auerbach, chief executive officer of
the public health advocacy group Trust for America’s Health, said in
a statement.
The increase largely stemmed from the continued escalation of deaths
from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which jumped to 19,410 in
2016 from 9,580 in 2015 and 5,540 in 2014, according to a TFAH
analysis of the report.
Heroin, an illegal opioid that is typically injected, accounted for
around 15,500 deaths, and prescription painkillers were involved in
about 14,500, TFAH reported.
“These are not simply numbers - these are actual lives,” said
Benjamin F. Miller, chief policy officer of Well Being Trust, a
non-profit foundation focused on mental health issues. "Seeing the
loss of life at this dramatic rate calls for more immediate action."
President Donald Trump in October declared the opioid crisis a
public health emergency, which senior administration officials said
would redirect federal resources and loosen regulations to combat
abuse of the drugs. However, he stopped short of declaring a
national emergency, a move he had promised months before and which
would have freed up more federal money.
Overdose rates rose in 40 states and in Washington, D.C., between
2015 and 2016, with 17 states seeing increases of 25 percent or
more, according to the TFAH analysis.
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“Every community has been impacted by this crisis," Auerbach said,
adding that the government was not making the investments needed to
"turn the tide."
The surge in overdose deaths has depressed recent gains in U.S. life
expectancy, which fell to an average age of 78.6, down 0.1 year from
2015 and marking the first two-year drop since 1962-1963.
In a separate report, the CDC linked the recent steep increases in
hepatitis C infections to increases in opioid injection.
Researchers used a national database that tracks substance abuse
admissions to treatment facilities in all 50 U.S. states. They found
a 133 percent increase in acute hepatitis C cases that coincided
with a 93 percent increase in admissions for opioid injection
between 2004 to 2014.
“Hepatitis C is a deadly, common, and often invisible result of
America’s opioid crisis,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of
CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB
Prevention. Mermin urged testing people who inject drugs for
hepatitis C infection to prevent new transmissions.
As the opioid epidemic has worsened, many state attorneys general
have sued makers of these drugs as they investigate whether
manufacturers and distributors engaged in unlawful marketing
behavior.
(Reporting by Caroline Humer in New York and Julie Steenhuysen in
Chicago; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and James Dalgleish)
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