Fentanyl Is Impacting All 50 States With Deadly Intensity
New CDC data released this week shows that fentanyl and other synthetic opioids have been cutting a swath of death across every state in the union, impacting every demographic and ethnic group imaginable.
As reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette, at a time when the country seems hopelessly divided, health officials are here to remind us of something that unites Americans from all walks of life: deaths tied to opioid overdoses.
A report issued Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presents some alarming new statistics about the opioid epidemic that claims the lives of 115 Americans each day.
Researchers from the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control examined data on fatal overdoses from the 31 states that made reliable reports of drug-related causes of death to the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System. The District of Columbia was included as well.
The picture that emerges is of a public health crisis that touches just about every segment of the country.
“From 2015 to 2016, opioid-involved deaths increased in males and females and among persons aged = 15 years, whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians/Pacific Islanders,” the researchers wrote. “Deaths involving synthetic opioids increased in every subgroup examined.”
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Some of the data from the report includes:
100 percent: The nationwide increase in fatal overdoses linked to synthetic opioids other than methadone. In other words, the death rate associated with these drugs doubled between 2015 and 2016.
200 percent: That’s how much the death rate due to synthetic opioids increased among Latinos and Asians and Pacific Islanders between 2015 and 2016. In other words, it tripled.
3: The number of “waves” in the epidemic of opioid overdose deaths, according to the CDC researchers. The first wave began in the 1990s, a result of prescription pain medications. The second wave followed in 2010, marked by fatal overdoses of heroin.
The current wave can be traced to the rise of IMF and other synthetic opioids, beginning in 2013. By 2016, these drugs were responsible for 45.9 percent of all opioid-related overdose deaths in the U.S.
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To learn more statistics behind the current wave of fentanyl related overdoses, please visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette.
