FEW BLESSINGS of modern science are entirely unmixed, and so it is with the development of powerful synthetic or semi-synthetic opioid analgesics — painkillers such asfentanyl and hydrocodone. Prescribed by the tens of millions in recent years for their power to relieve otherwise crippling pain in the victims of disease and injury, these pills have turned into a $7.3 billion-per-year business. Yet they also pose a major public health risk because of their ready availability and addictiveness to many patients.
In fact, abuse of prescription medications is overtaking that of “street drugs” such as heroin and cocaine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spoke of a pain-pill overdose “epidemic” that cost 15,000 lives in the United States in 2008, up from 4,000 in 1999. Nearly half a million emergency-department visits in 2009 were because of people misusing or abusing prescription painkillers, according to the CDC, while nonmedical use of prescription painkillers costs health insurers up to $72.5 billion annually.
continue to read here
No comments:
Post a Comment