Opioids could kill nearly half a million Americans over the next decade, a new analysis claims.
The online publication STAT asked public health experts at 10 universities to forecast the course of the escalating opioid epidemic over the next decade.
Almost all of the forecasts predict opioid-related deaths in America will surpass 50,000 per year, with the most optimistic forecasts predicting a slowing rate to 21,000 deaths per year by 2027, STAT reported.
But that trend assumes doctors act immediately to cut back on opioid prescriptions, insurers enact major reforms to improve treatment access and states embrace prescription drug monitoring programs.
However, in a worse-case scenario, the now-nearly 100 deaths a day from opioids could spike to 250 deaths a day, if potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil continue to spread rapidly – and the waits for treatment continue to lengthen in hard-hit states like West Virginia and New Hampshire, STAT reported.
That bleak prediction means the death toll over the next decade could top 650,000, STAT reported.
"It's like cigarettes in the '50s: We look back at the way people smoked and promoted cigarettes as laughably backwards — magazine ads with doctors saying, 'Physicians prefer Camels," Dr. Michael Barnett of Harvard told STAT.
"We have the same thing now — Oxycontin ads in medical journals where doctors would say, 'Opioids are good for treating pain. They don't have addictive potential.' It's possible 20 years from now, we're going to look back and say, 'I cannot believe we promoted these dangerous, addictive medications that are only marginally more effective.'"
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