The death toll from overdoses of prescription painkillers has more than tripled in the past decade, according to an analysis in the CDC Vital Signs report released today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This new finding shows that more than 40 people die every day from overdoses involving narcotic pain relievers like hydrocodone (Vicodin), methadone, oxycodone (OxyContin), and oxymorphone (Opana).   “Overdoses involving prescription painkillers are at epidemic levels and now kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined, ” said CDC Director Thomas Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “States, health insurers, health...

Between 1997 and 2007, unintentional injury jumped 21% among patients ages 25 to 44, with poisoning -- which includes drug overdose -- accounting for 42% of those deaths in 200

  An examination of unintentional overdose deaths in West Virginia, a state that has experienced one of the highest increases in the rate of drug overdose deaths, finds that the majority of these were associated with the nonmedical use and diversion of pharmaceuticals, primarily pain relievers, according to a new study. In 1997, two expert panels in the United States introduced clinical guidelines for management of chronic pain, including encouraging expanded use of opioid pain medications after careful patient evaluation and counseling when other treatments are inadequate. In the 10 years since the guidelines were first published, per...

The death toll from overdoses of prescription painkillers has more than tripled in the past decade, according to an analysis in the CDC Vital Signs report released today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This new finding shows that more than 40 people die every day from overdoses involving narcotic pain relievers like hydrocodone (Vicodin), methadone, oxycodone (OxyContin), and oxymorphone (Opana). “Overdoses involving prescription painkillers are at epidemic levels and now kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined, ” said CDC Director Thomas Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “States, health insurers, health...

While motor vehicle traffic accidents continue to be the leading cause of unintentional deaths in the United States (comprising 42,031 or 34% of all such deaths in 2007), drug overdose deaths have been rapidly increasing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 27,658 unintentional drug overdose deaths in 2007, more than double the 11,155 deaths in 1999. Drug overdose deaths now account for 24% of all unintentional deaths and surpass falls as the second leading cause of unintentional deaths. Unintentional drug overdoses include those resulting from illegal, prescription, and over-the-counter drug misuse,...

The death of a man this week in East Alton potentially is the 22nd fatal heroin overdose of 2011, a number four times greater than what Madison County saw just four years ago, the coroner said Tuesday. “In 2008, we had five cases; in 2009, seven; in 2010, 18,” Coroner Stephen Nonn said. “There is definitely a problem here. We’re not even halfway through the year.” An autopsy was conducted Tuesday on Jessie S. Outhouse, 29, who died at his home in the 200 block of Westwood Place in East Alton; his body was found Monday. Results of the toxicology tests will not be known for several weeks, but if they bear out, the...

Unintentional overdose deaths in teens and adults have reached epidemic proportions in the U.S. In some 20 states in 2007 the number of unintentional drug poisoning deaths exceeded either motor vehicle crashes or suicides, two of the leading causes of injury death. Prescription opioid pain medications are driving this overdose epidemic. Opioid pain medications were also involved in about 36 percent of all poisoning suicides in the U.S. in 2007.   In a commentary article released ahead of the print version in the April 19, 2011 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, physicians affiliated with the U.S. Centers for Disease...