CDC says drug overdose deaths exceeded 100,000 within a year

by ian

Ian Patrick, FISM News

 

The United States witnessed a tragic milestone on Wednesday as new data revealed that an estimated 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in the span of a year.

According to recent data released by the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics, almost 98,000 deaths were reported in the twelve-month period ending in April 2021. Because the data set is incomplete, the CDC predicts that the estimated amount is actually just above 100,300.

This predicted total is a 28.5% increase nationwide from April of 2020, which stood at just over 78,000 predicted deaths within a twelve-year period.

A data table also shows that, within the April 2020 to April 2021 period, the states with the highest percentage increase of overdose deaths include Vermont, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee among others. A few states including South Dakota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Delaware saw a drop in death percentage within the same period.

This data coincides with another FISM News report from July of this year which said that deaths specifically from opioids had risen sharply in 2020.

Several officials believe that an increased use of fentanyl-laced drugs and the isolation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic has directly led to this most recent jump in data.

Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, director of the American Health Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said, “This is a momentous tragedy hidden by the pandemic.” He added that many addiction help programs were “less accessible during the pandemic,” and despite the need for such programs “there was less access to care in many places.”

President Joe Biden released a statement on the unfortunate milestone calling it an “epidemic of loss.” He plugged funding from his American Rescue Plan which he says has boosted the amount of “services for substance use disorder and mental health” as well as other treatment options.

Biden closed the statement by telling the families of those who lost loved ones that they “are in our hearts.”

To all those families who have mourned a loved one and to all those people who are facing addiction or are in recovery: you are in our hearts, and you are not alone. Together, we will turn the tide on this epidemic.

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