Opioid overdose deaths triple among US teens and young children
Opioid overdose death rates among US teens and children have tripled over the past 17 years, a new study shows. The study, published online in JAMA Network Open, examined a group of almost 9,000 children and adolescents (under age 20) who died in all settings from opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016.
Julie Gaither, lead researcher of the study and an instructor at the Yale School of Medicine, told MedicalXpress, “These deaths don’t reach the magnitude of adult deaths from opioids, but they follow a similar pattern.” She added, “As we consider how to contain this epidemic, parents, clinicians and prescribers need to consider how children and adolescents are affected and how our families and communities are affected.”
“What began more than two decades ago as a public health problem primarily among young and middle-aged white males is now an epidemic of prescription and illicit opioid abuse that is taking a toll on all segments of US society, including the pediatric population.”
Drug overdose deaths in the US topped 72,000 in 2017.
While some deaths can be blamed on unscrupulous drug dealers, these deaths must above all be laid at the feet of the multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies who have flooded neighborhoods with these potent opioids.
In line with the opioid crisis affecting the US adult population, the devastating toll of opioid deaths among children casts a grim light on 21st century America. While the opioid crisis spares no segment of society, the most profoundly affected are workers and the poor and the communities where they live. At the root of this crisis lies a society characterized by growing social inequality, corporate greed and profound government indifference.
The giant pharmaceutical companies, who are responsible for the scourge of opioid addiction and deaths, must be transformed into publicly owned utilities. The health insurance industry, which dedicates its resources to denying coverage and treatments instead of curing the ill, must be abolished and replaced with universal, socialized medicine.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/12/31/opio-d31.html
