Opioid epidemic ‘is underestimated’, CDC report warns
- A new report by the CDC found half of Minnesota’s drug deaths since 2006 have not been listed as opioid-related
- The lead researcher Dr Victoria Hall warns this shows the opioid epidemic could be underestimated
- Data suggests 91 deaths a day from opioids. Dr Hall says it is likely much more
Mia De Graaf For Dailymail.com
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Government researchers warn we may have grossly underestimated the scale of the opioid epidemic.
Until now, official data suggested 91 people a day are being killed by prescription painkillers as America grapples to control a widespread addiction crisis.
However, a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention questions that figure – warning it could be far greater, with most deaths listed under another cause.
More than half of opioid-related deaths in Minnesota between 2006 and 2015 are not listed in the state’s official database, researchers found.
A new report by the CDC found half of Minnesota’s drug deaths since 2006 have not been listed as opioid-related – suggesting the same could be true for others states
The finding emerged on Monday as a side note during the annual conference on infectious diseases, which this year is being held in Atlanta, Georgia.
The report warned a spate of drug deaths in Minnesota flew under the radar, listed instead as being ‘unexplained’ or caused by an infectious disease.
Minnesota is the only state in the country which still operates an ‘unexplained death’ surveillance system – something the CDC tried to implement nationwide in 1995, but was slowly abandoned.
CDC researcher Dr Victoria Hall, based in the northern state, was trawling through the database, which was designed to spot emerging diseases.
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She saw that out of 1,676 deaths, 59 of them (3.5 percent) involved prescription drugs. Of those, 22 had overdosed.
But none were listed in the state’s official data.
‘In early spring, the Minnesota Department of Health was notified of an unexplained death: a middle-aged man who died suddenly at home,’ Dr Hall told the conference, according to CNN.
The man, she said, had been taking painkillers for back pain for years, to the extent that his family was concerned.
After his death, the family mentioned his drug use, prompting the medical examiner to test for both pneumonia and opioids in the autopsy.
‘However, on the death certificate, it only listed the pneumonia and made no mention of opioids,’ Dr Hall explained.
She added: ‘While my research cannot speak to what percent we are underestimating, we know we are missing cases. It does seem like it is almost an iceberg of an epidemic.’
Drug users are more susceptible to infectious diseases, often making it difficult to determine a cause of death.
However, Dr Hall urges data collectors and medical examiners to be alive to the crossovers, and warned that drugs ‘do not discriminate’. Indeed, the average age of drug death victims in the new report were 43 years old, and most (53 percent) were female.
‘The contributions of opioid toxicity, infectious disease, or their interactions to death are challenging to disentangle; understanding these interactions might inform future opioid-related mortality prevention efforts,’ Dr Hall said.
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