Tag: drug overdoses

Illinois data: Deaths of people 18 to 49 soar in 2020-21; most of excess not COVID-related

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/illinois-data-deaths-of-people-18-to-49-soar-in-2020-21-most-of-excess/article_091b8228-807c-11ec-b235-239935b60883.html#new_tab

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Nearly 27% more people ages 18 to 49 in Illinois have died in each of the past two years than in each of the three years prior. COVID-related deaths in that age group account for just a minority of the excess deaths.

Data the Illinois Department of Public Health provided The Center Square show 29% more fatalities in 2021 and 24% more in 2020 when compared to the average for the three years prior for those ages 18 to 49. Combined for 2020 and 2021, the total number of deaths among that demographic is 21,511.

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COVID-related deaths in the past two years totals about 1,700 for that age group. Subtracting the 1,700 COVID deaths from the excess death total of 4,467 leaves 2,767 excess deaths for 2020 and 2021 that are not categorized by IDPH, meaning the causes of death for the excess 2,767 are not described.

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While COVID-19 is listed as the third leading cause of death in Illinois for all ages in 2020, the leading cause of deaths IDPH lists for those 18 to 44 is accidents, assaults, suicides and heart disease. COVID-19 is not listed as a leading cause of death at all for ages 18 to 24. COVID-19 does show up at No. 6 for those 25 to 44, or 370 out of a total of 6,439.

Author(s): Greg Bishop

Publication Date: 28 Jan 2022

Publication Site: The Center Square

More than 1 million have died in the overdose crisis, but still the response is scandalously inadequate

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/24/dopesick-author-on-opioid-crisis/

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These are measures taken by people desperately fighting, largely on their own, against a drug-overdose death toll that historically has killed more Americans than the coronavirus pandemic. Since 1996, the year OxyContin launched and the United States’ health-care system fell prey to the lie that opioid painkillers were safe for virtually everything from headaches to wisdom-tooth surgery, more than 1 million Americans have died of overdoses; the coronavirus pandemic has claimed about 850,000. During the first year of the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a record 100,000 annual overdose deaths.

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But with an even more lethal overdose crisis — and that’s not counting all the addiction-related deaths from hepatitis, endocarditis and suicide — the nation’s leadership appears capable of only minor tweaks.

Some blue-leaning states and cities now offer evidence-backed practices such as supplying drug users with clean needles and fentanyl test strips, and even offering medically supervised spaces to inject illicit drugs — all of which foster important connections to professional care and wraparound services. But in much of the world’s richest nation, where a few million Americans suffer with opioid use disorder, these measures remain anathema.

The pandemic-prompted loosening of federal regulations for the telehealth prescribing of buprenorphine, the lifesaving addiction medication, has been a bright spot, particularly for rural people who have long struggled with transportation issues. But that policy change remains temporary and the treatment gap (with an estimated 10 to 12 percent of addicted people receiving treatment in an average year) has barely budged.

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Epidemiologists predict that by 2029, U.S. overdose deaths will have doubled to nearly 2 million. Until we stop arresting and abandoning people who use drugs and start meeting them where they are with treatment and compassion, rare will be the family that remains untouched.

Author(s): Beth Macy

Publication Date: 24 Jan 2022

Publication Site: Washington Post

Nationwide Surge In Deaths Among People Aged 18-49: A State by State Overview

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/northeast-fares-best-amid-2021-prime-age-mortality-spike_4208797.html

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Deaths among people aged 18 to 49 increased more than 40 percent in the 12 months ending October 2021 compared to the same period in 2018–2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis of death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by The Epoch Times.

The agency doesn’t yet have full 2021 numbers, as death certificate data trickles in with a lag of one to eight weeks or more.

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It’s not clear why the mortality spike seemed to exhibit a geographical trend. Overall, a part of the surge could be likely blamed on drug overdoses, which increased to more than 101,000 in the 12 months ending June 2021 from about 72,000 in 2019, the CDC estimated. About two-thirds of those deaths involved synthetic opioids including fentanyl that are often smuggled to the United States from China through Mexico.

For those ages 50 to 84, mortality went up more than 27 percent, representing more than 470,000 excess deaths. Almost four out of five of the deaths had COVID marked on the death certificate as the cause or a contributing factor.

Author(s): Petr Savb

Publication Date: 13 Jan 2022

Publication Site: The Epoch Times

Opioids and the Unattached Male

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.city-journal.org/opioids-and-the-unattached-male

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From 2010 to 2019, the drug-related death rate among never-married prime-age white men increased some 125 percent: from 52 deaths per 100,000 to 117 (including 2020 would show an even steeper rise, but the pandemic affected Census data collection). If single and divorced prime-age white men had seen opioid deaths rise by only the same rate as those deaths rose among their married counterparts, the U.S. would have seen 38,800 fewer deaths from drug-related causes over the past decade just among this demographic group.

A marriage certificate is no prophylactic against the scourge of drug overdoses, of course. Marital status is correlated with income, race, and age; while death certificates don’t report income, we know that married decedents are more likely to be white, older, and better-educated. Controlling for those factors still shows single men to be at greater risk of dying from drug-related causes than married ones.

Author(s): Patrick T. Brown

Publication Date: 14 Jan 2022

Publication Site: City Journal

Drug overdose deaths top 100,000 annually for the first time, driven by fentanyl, CDC data show

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/17/health/drug-overdose-deaths-record-high/index.html

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More than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses in the United States during the 12-month period ending April 2021, according to provisional data published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That’s a new record high, with overdose deaths jumping 28.5% from the same period a year earlier and nearly doubling over the past five years.

Opioids continue to be the driving cause of drug overdose deaths. Synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, caused nearly two-thirds (64%) of all drug overdose deaths in the 12-month period ending April 2021, up 49% from the year before, the CDC’s ‘s National Center for Health Statistics found.

Author(s): Deidre McPhillips

Publication Date: 17 Nov 2021

Publication Site: CNN

Americans are overdosing on a drug they don’t know they’re taking

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/17/politics/fentanyl-overdose-deaths-what-matters/index.html

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From May 2020 through April 2021, more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in the US, according to provisional data released Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That’s a horrible new record for drug overdose deaths — a near-30% rise from the same period a year earlier and a near-doubling over the past five years.

The drug epidemic grew in tandem with the Covid-19 pandemic, which claimed about 509,000 deaths in the same period.

Author(s): Zachary B. Wolf

Publication Date: 18 Nov 2021

Publication Site: CNN

US overdose deaths topped 100,000 in one year, officials say

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://apnews.com/article/overdodse-deaths-fentanayl-health-f34b022d75a1eb9776e27903ab40670f

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An estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in one year, a never-before-seen milestone that health officials say is tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and a more dangerous drug supply.

Overdose deaths have been rising for more than two decades, accelerated in the past two years and, according to new data posted Wednesday, jumped nearly 30% in the latest year.

President Joe Biden called it “a tragic milestone” in a statement, as administration officials pressed Congress to devote billions of dollars more to address the problem.

“This is unacceptable and it requires an unprecedented response,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of National Drug Control Policy.

Experts believe the top drivers of overdose deaths are the growing prevalence of deadly fentanyl in the illicit drug supply and the COVID-19 pandemic, which left many drug users socially isolated and unable to get treatment or other support.

Author(s): Mike Stobbe

Publication Date: 18 Nov 2021

Publication Site: Associated Press

Lockdowns Coincided With Record-Breaking Drug Overdose Fatalities, New CDC Data Show

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://fee.org/articles/lockdowns-coincided-with-record-breaking-drug-overdose-fatalities-new-cdc-data-show/

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An astounding 96,000 Americans died from drug overdoses over that one-year period, the latest figures released by the Centers for Disease Control reveal. That’s a 29.6 percent increase from the previous year. 

“This has been an incredibly uncertain and stressful time for many people and we are seeing an increase in drug consumption, difficulty in accessing life-saving treatments for substance use disorders, and a tragic rise in overdose deaths,” National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Dr. Nora Volkow said earlier this year. 

Author(s): Brad Polumbo

Publication Date: 14 Oct 2021

Publication Site: FEE

US overdose deaths hit record 93,000 in pandemic last year

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://apnews.com/article/overdose-deaths-record-covid-pandemic-fd43b5d91a81179def5ac596253b0304

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Overdose deaths soared to a record 93,000 last year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government reported Wednesday.

That estimate far eclipses the high of about 72,000 drug overdose deaths reached the previous year and amounts to a 29% increase.

“This is a staggering loss of human life,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who tracks overdose trends.

Author(s): Mike Stobbe

Publication Date: 14 July 2021

Publication Site: Associated Press

Mortality with Meep: Huge Increase in Death by Drug Overdose in 2020

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-with-meep-huge-increase

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In 2020, there were over 93K deaths due to drug overdoses — a 30% increase over 2019.

This is super-bad, and worse than what I have seen for increases in other causes of death. I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn’t realize it was going to be this bad.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 14 July 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Young American Adults Are Dying — and Not Just From Covid

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-18/young-american-adults-are-dying-and-not-just-from-covid

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The observation that downward mortality trends have reversed in recent years for some groups of Americans is not new. Economists Ann Case and Angus Deaton helped start the discussion with their 2015 paper on rising mortality among middle-aged, non-Hispanic White Americans, and subsequently gave the phenomenon a resonant name: “deaths of despair.” Research has also identified those without college degrees and rural Americans as especially troubled.

In March, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee summed up the current state of knowledge in a 475-page report on “High and Rising Mortality Rates Among Working-Age Adults.” Advances in overall life expectancy stalled in the U.S. after 2010 even while continuing in other wealthy countries, the committee summed up, attributing this mainly to (1) rising mortality due to external causes such as drugs, alcohol and suicide among those aged 25 through 64 and (2) a slowing in declines in deaths from internal causes, chiefly cardiovascular diseases.

Author(s): Justin Fox

Publication Date: 18 June 2021

Publication Site: Bloomberg

Death rates for young American adults rise due to overdoses, traffic accidents

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://thepostmillennial.com/death-rates-for-young-american-adults-rise-due-to-overdoses-traffic-accidents

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Those aged 15-to-44 have seen fluctuating mortality rates since the 1950s, deviating from all other age groups that have seen steady decreases over the years. The age group’s mortality rate for the COVID-19 pandemic “pales in comparison” to the 1918 pandemic, according to Bloomberg.

“In March, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee summed up their findings in a report titled ‘High and Rising Mortality Rates Among Working-Age Adults.’ Advances in overall life expectancy stalled in the US after 2010 even while continuing in other wealthy countries, the committee summed up, attributing this mainly to (1) rising mortality due to external causes such as drugs, alcohol and suicide among those aged 25 through 64 and (2) a slowing in declines in deaths from internal causes, chiefly cardiovascular diseases,” wrote Bloomberg.

Author(s): Hannah Nightingale

Publication Date: 18 June 2021

Publication Site: The Post Millennial