Health Impact News Editor Comments: We have had a lot of “false scares” in recent years over supposed epidemics that threatened the U.S. population, such as the “bird flu” and the “swine flu.” Fear over such potential epidemics that never happened gave great economic benefit to the vaccine industry that rushed vaccines to the market, often with legal protection in case they rushed them to market too soon without proper safety testing. But statistics released this week by the CDC show a real epidemic: deaths from prescription painkillers tripled between 1999 and 2008.
Excerpts:
The number of overdose deaths from powerful painkillers more than tripled over a decade, the government reported Tuesday — a trend that a U.S. health official called an epidemic, but one that can be stopped.
Prescription painkillers such as OxyContin, Vicodin and methadone led to the deaths of almost 15,000 people in 2008, including actor Heath Ledger. That’s more than three times the 4,000 deaths from narcotics in 1999.
Such painkillers “are meant to help people who have severe pain,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which issued the report. “They are, however, highly addictive.”
The report shows nearly 5 percent of Americans ages 12 and older said they’ve abused painkillers in the past year — using them without a prescription or just for the high.
Read the Full Story Here: http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/ap/us_med_painkiller_overdoses
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