More Americans die from overdosing on painkillers each year than from heroin and cocaine combined. If that isn’t proof enough of an epidemic, consider this: In the U.S., 45 people are killed by these opiate-based medications every day. Now a new report has found a villain to blame for the country’s addiction to pain meds: doctors operating under the influence of big pharma.
“The push for doctors to prescribe more opioids, and particularly more potent ones such oxycodone, is strongly associated with an increase in mortality,” says Nicolas King, a professor of social studies of medicine at Canada’s McGill University and co-author of the paper.
In an effort to unmask the causes of a drug epidemic that has grown four-fold since 1999, King and his colleagues reviewed 144 existing studies on opioid-related deaths. According to their findings, the conventional wisdom that pills mills, doctor shopping and the Internet drug trade are to blame is largely misguided. “It’s not just a few bad apples,” King explains. “It’s much larger and systemic.”
Activists rally against Zohydro, a new painkiller that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick attempted to ban before a federal judge rebuffed him.
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