Fatal ODs from Narcotic Painkillers Have Tripled in US

December 2, 2014

(Medical Xpress) – The epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse continues to take a deadly toll in the United States, with fatal overdoses involving drugs such as Oxycontin and Vicodin tripling over a decade, a new report shows. Deaths from another form of opiate, heroin, also nearly tripled between 1999 and 2012, according to the report released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There was one glimmer of hope, however: In the last year of the study, 2011-2012, the CDC noted a 5 percent drop in prescription painkiller deaths, the first such decline ever.