PRESCRIPTION OPIOID DEATHS TRENDING BACK UP WHILE AMERICAN MEDICINE DOUBLES TRIPLES DOWN ON ITS OPIOID CRISIS
Opioid misprescribing remains rampant and shielded by Media-fabricated distracting cover stories, with predictable return to increasing OD deaths
by Clark Miller
Published December 17, 2021
Some disturbing news from Maryland –
From this report of overdose deaths in Maryland –
Disturbing, not surprising, in fact predicted.
In a new report –
New research shows that approximately 1 in 5 “opioid-naive” adults continued to use the pain medication three months after having a procedure.
People with depression, bipolar disorder, pulmonary hypertension, or who were smokers were among those with the highest risk for continuing to take opioids, according to the findings which were presented at the Anesthesiology 2021 annual meeting held October 8 to 12 in San Diego, California.
“The more than 100 million surgeries in the United States every year create an unintended and alarming gateway to long-term opioid use,” said Gia Pittet, PhD, doctor of audiology, lead author of the study and visiting graduate researcher for anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at the University of California in Los Angeles, in a release.
. . .
“These findings are alarming, but it’s something we do see in the real world — patients who have never taken opioids and then get opioids through a prescription, in this case [after] surgery — and then months or a year later they are still on opioid medication,” says Dr. Rajneesh.
What else are we seeing in the real world,
where a collusion of American Medicine and a frightened, compliant Media fabricate distraction and deception while deaths mount?
In Massachusetts –
Let’s take a closer look at the values for prescription opioids.
– prescription opioid ODs over pandemic months are overall greater than for any preceding year (2017, 2018, and 2019)
– the graphically represented values are, beginning with quarter 2 of 2020, all equal to or higher than the preceding 4 quarters
– there is an apparent trend upward, as consistently in other locales, for most recent data
That appears to be the same trend as is observed in Maryland, where prescription opioid deaths by misuse decreased over the years 2016 to 2019, then increased by 20 percent from 2019 to pandemic months i.e. over 2020, from 369 to 445 deaths.
In California –
Consistent with trends, overdose deaths attributable to prescribed opioids decreased over preceding years before surging to new levels through 2020.
California experienced 5,502 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2020, the most recent calendar year of data available. The annual crude mortality rate for 2020 was 13.87 per 100k residents. This represents a 126% increase from 2018. The following charts present 12-month moving averages for selected opioid indicators (prescription-, heroin-, and synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths, and ED visits related to any opioid) and include trend data for 2021*. The map displays the annual county level age-adjusted rates for any opioid-related overdose deaths. Synthetic overdose deaths may be largely represented by fentanyl.
In Colorado –
Prescription opioid deaths increased in 2020 by 19 percent from 2019 after declining over the preceding 3 years.
In Virginia –
From the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, 2021 second quarter report of fatal drug overdose trends.
Prescription drug overdose deaths rose back to the historic high level in 2020 after two years of decline.
In Florida –
And in Washington, D.C. as reported in the dcist –
In 2020, fatal opioid overdoses in the D.C. area surged dramatically — in some cases, to the highest levels ever recorded.
Based on the most recently available data, 2021 is set to be an even deadlier year for much of the region — a trend that experts attribute to a myriad of factors, including pandemic-induced isolation, the omnipresence of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, and a lack of addiction support resources.
Data come from the DC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME). It is important to note that values for 2021 include data only through August of 2021.
The DC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) investigated a total of 17071 deaths due to the use of opioids from January 1, 2016 through August 31, 2021. This report examines the presence of opioids (heroin, fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, morphine, prescription opioids and the general category of opiates) in deaths observed at the OCME.
Overdose deaths with prescription opioids involved rose in 2019 and 2020 after a low in 2018 and by projection from the first half of 2021 appear set to increase again.
In Maryland, Massachusetts, California, Colorado, Virginia, Florida, and Washington, D.C. trends indicate clear increases in 2020 and 2021 in overdose deaths involving doctor-prescribed opioids compared to prior years, consistent with evidence of continued over-prescribing. And consistent with protective shielding of misprescribing by Media-fabricated distracting cover stories empowering and enabling the lethal practices.
Is American Medicine doubling down on its lethal epidemic? Or tripling down?
From a recent post –
But that’s not all, there’s something missing, hidden
by mass media colluding with medical institutions, medical prescribers, and useful idiots constructed as “healthcare experts” or “addiction treatment experts” to distract the public with an opioid shell game – in which oxycontin and hydrocodone, for example, are “prescribed opioids” while methadone, suboxone, and subutex are NOT prescribed opioids – creating the necessary lie that prescription opioids are NOT THE PROBLEM, because the real problems are the evil Sackler family and fentanyl. Because buprenorphine and methadone are NOT prescribed opioids.
Because if they were acknowledged as, identified with “prescribed opioids”, then OH SHIT do we have a problem. Because – and unfortunately the evidence is longstanding, extensive, and consistent – as routinely diverted, abused, addictive opioids, potentially lethal alone or as increasingly used in combination benzos and other drugs, they are serving as commodity and currency on the street in illicit, lethal opioid economies. Economies in which medical prescribers are handing out the currency.
But remember, the opioids routinely diverted, abused, traded for illicit opioids on the street, increasingly present in opioid overdoses, and despite not being regularly even reported in overdose reports, are not of concern to you. That’s why we don’t report on them. Move along, there’s nothing to see here. Don’t think for a minute that those opioids are methadone, Suboxone, and Subutex. Prescribed by doctors and other medical professionals in increasing amounts. Now prescribed without need for evaluation or in-person contact. By video connection. Against all relevant evidence that they are fueling an increasingly lethal opioid crisis. Opioids prescribed just as in the creation of the opioid crisis.
It is not your place to question that.
That’s dangerous thinking.
Stop it.
It was the Sacklers.
Tripling down, it seems, with very high stakes. They act as if they cannot lose, as if they are protected.
