On December 12, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s National Center for Health Statistics published a National Vital Statistics Report warning that the opioid fentanyl has been associated with more overdose deaths than any other drug in the U.S., amounting to nearly a third of all overdose deaths.
Considering the data from 2011-2016 National Vital Statistics System-Mortality files, the recent report suggested fentanyl-related deaths amounted to 29% of opioid overdose deaths in 2016 leading to more than 18,000 deaths. In 2011, oxycodone was blamed for 13% of fatal overdose deaths, while 11% of overdoses involved heroin. Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the co-founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, cautioned that the opioid crisis has emerged strongly as ever and stated that, "fentanyl is so deadly, in the geographic regions where it's been flooding in, deaths soared as we've never seen before." From 2012 to 2015, heroin was the reason for most overdose deaths. But in 2016, fentanyl was linked to increasing overdose deaths.
Total overdose deaths spiked to 54% each year between 2011 and 2016 resulting in nearly 64,000 deaths in 2016 alone. The 10 most frequently reported drugs from 2011–2016 included fentanyl, heroin, hydrocodone, methadone, morphine, oxycodone, alprazolam, diazepam, cocaine, and methamphetamine. As a synthetic opioid painkiller Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, developed mainly for cancer pain. The CDC issued a health alert for fentanyl and fentanyl analogs and suggested that the first responders and medical providers be given updated recommendations.
