Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Fri 05/23/2025 View Thu 05/22/2025 View Wed 05/21/2025 View Tue 05/20/2025 View Mon 05/19/2025 View Sun 05/18/2025 View Sat 05/17/2025
2019-10-25 Science & Technology
Massachusetts Study Confirms That People Rarely Die After Using Opioids Prescribed for Them
h/t Instapundit
Although prescription pain medication is commonly blamed for the "opioid epidemic," such drugs play a small and shrinking role in deaths involving this category of psychoactive substances. A recent study of opioid-related deaths in Massachusetts underlines this crucial point, finding that prescription analgesics were detected without heroin or fentanyl in less than 17 percent of the cases. Furthermore, decedents had prescriptions for the opioids that showed up in toxicology tests just 1.3 percent of the time.

    Objectives:
    Opioid-related overdoses are commonly attributed to prescription opioids. We examined data on opioid-related overdose decedents in Massachusetts. For each decedent, we determined which opioid medications had been prescribed and dispensed and which opioids were detected in postmortem medical examiner toxicology specimens.

    Methods:
    Among opioid-related overdose decedents in Massachusetts during 2013-2015, we analyzed individually linked postmortem opioid toxicology reports and prescription drug monitoring program records to determine instances of overdose in which a decedent had a prescription active on the date of death for the opioid(s) detected in the toxicology report. We also calculated the proportion of overdoses for which prescribed opioid medications were not detected in decedents’ toxicology reports.

    Results:
    Of 2916 decedents with complete toxicology reports, 1789 (61.4%) had heroin and 1322 (45.3%) had fentanyl detected in postmortem toxicology reports. Of the 491 (16.8%) decedents with ≥1 opioid prescription active on the date of death, prescribed opioids were commonly not detected in toxicology reports, specifically: buprenorphine (56 of 97; 57.7%), oxycodone (93 of 176; 52.8%), and methadone prescribed for opioid use disorder (36 of 112; 32.1%). Only 39 (1.3%) decedents had an active prescription for each opioid detected in toxicology reports on the date of death.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-10-25 02:30|| || Front Page|| [11140 views ]  Top

#1 Self protecting study. For example, I hurt my knee. The docs give me an opioid drug for the pain. I get hooked on them. The knee heals and I no longer have the script for opioids. So I go out and find them on the street. The pills are pricey and hard to find so I shift to heroin or fentanyl. Eventually I OD. This is bull.....
Posted by 49 Pan 2019-10-25 11:39||   2019-10-25 11:39|| Front Page Top

#2 But Herb says if the gummint doesn't stop you from od-ing it's all good.
Posted by M. Murcek 2019-10-25 15:28||   2019-10-25 15:28|| Front Page Top

#3 All this is helpful in directing resources where they can do the most good. But how do we stop the heroin and fentanyl overdoses? That's been a question for most of my lifetime, and I don't see any good answers. I wish someone could.
Posted by Tom 2019-10-25 17:29||   2019-10-25 17:29|| Front Page Top

#4 Some of these OD's are like Gump's box of chocolate. Never can tell what's in the juice until it's too late.
Posted by Texhooey 2019-10-25 18:58||   2019-10-25 18:58|| Front Page Top

10:39 trailing wife
10:32 Procopius2k
10:20 MikeKozlowski
10:20 swksvolFF
09:59 Gleng Whaick2262
09:53 SteveS
09:45 Mercutio
09:44 Glenmore
09:44 trailing wife
09:43 Beavis
09:38 Mercutio
09:34 Glenmore
09:22 SteveS
09:04 SteveS
08:56 Gravilet Snanter4154
08:51 SteveS
08:50 ed in texas
08:47 ed in texas
08:44 ed in texas
08:34 NN2N1
08:25 DarthVader
08:14 Super Hose
08:11 Super Hose
08:09 technochitlin









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com