by Mike Adams

the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews

December 23, 2009

from NaturalNews Website

 

On the heels of the sudden death of celebrity actress Brittany Murphy, people are once again raising the question of just how dangerous prescription drugs might really be.

Some are arguing, however, that street drugs are the real danger, not prescription drugs. But the following study demonstrates why prescription drugs are far more dangerous than illegal recreational drugs.

According to a new study conducted by physicians at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto, the number of deaths due to prescription opioid use has doubled between 1991 and 2004. Following the introduction of oxycodone into Toronto's drug formulary in 2000, there has been a 500% increase in deaths due to the drugs.

Researchers reviewed over 7,000 files from the Office of the Chief Coroner in Ontario and found that between the years of 1991 and 2004, oxycodone prescriptions increased by more than 850 percent, representing about one-third of the opioid prescriptions given in 2006. (This is the largest prescription increase among all opioid drugs.)

Following the addition of this drug into the provincial drug benefit plan in 2000, deaths from opioid usage rose by 41 percent. Shockingly, deaths from prescription opioids like oxycodone were far greater than deaths from heroin. The vast majority of people who died from opioids had visited their doctor and received a prescription for the drug within a month of their death.

The total number of opioid-related deaths in Toronto in 2004 is estimated to be 27.2 per million people. Study authors said they hope to shed light on the tremendous dangers associated with prescription opioid drugs.
 

 


Coked up on prescription smack


It's the dirty little secret of the pharmaceutical industry:

More people are killed by prescription opioids than all those killed by heroin and cocaine combined. And that probably even includes all the shootings of gang bangers in northern Mexico.

Prescription drug abuse is now more common than street drug abuse - by far! And yet Big Pharma rakes in huge profits from all the patient addictions to their opioids.

 

And by "opioids", what I mean is narcotics. They are, in fact, one and the same.

So of all the drug addicts in America today, you can divide them into two camps:

1) People addicted to street drugs.
2) People addicted to prescription drugs.

The people in group #1 (street drugs) are taken to jail where they are given prison sentences. People in group #2 (prescription drugs) are taken to their doctor where they are given prescription refills. It's all really the same narcotics, it's just that one group is legal and the other is illegal.

And what really determines whether a particular narcotic is legal or illegal? Whether or not Big Pharma profits from it.

 

If Big Pharma makes money off the narcotics, they're considered legal.

Big Pharma, you see, earns tens of billions of dollars each year from drug addicts. And just by coincidence, it turns out that their prescription narcotics are extremely addicting, guaranteeing repeat business. The business model is so dang lucrative, you might think they were drug dealers...

Why do you think the main sponsors for the Partnership For A Drug-Free America are the drug companies themselves? It's because Big Pharma is trying to eliminate the competition. By keeping up the so-called "War on Drugs" front, the pharmaceutical industry can make sure it dominates the market for narcotics.

 

After all, if you're going to feed narcotics to a nation full of junkies, why not make a hefty profit on it?

 

That's the thinking of drug companies, it seems, as they have done basically zilch to effectively stem the abuse of their own prescription narcotics. Much like the tobacco companies, drug companies secretly want people to be addicted to their products.

Sources for this story include below reports:

 

 

Deaths Related to Narcotic Pain Relievers Have Doubled Since 1991: Study
Introduction of OxyContin Linked to A Five-Fold Increase in Deaths
by Julie Saccone

St. Michael's Hospital

December 7, 2009
from Eurekalert Website
 

TORONTO, December 7, 2009

Deaths from opioid use in Ontario have doubled - from 13.7 deaths per million residents in 1991 to 27.2 deaths per million residents in 2004 - according to a new study led by physicians at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto.

Researchers also found that the addition of a long-acting form of oxycodone (OxyContin) to the province's drug formulary in January 2000 corresponded with a five-fold increase in oxycodone-related deaths.

"Many doctors are aware that prescription opioids can have fatal side effects by depressing breathing and decreasing level of consciousness," explains lead author Dr. Irfan Dhalla, a physician at St. Michael's Hospital. "But we suspect most will be surprised to learn just how many deaths occur each year in Ontario from prescription opioids."

Opioids, also known as narcotic pain relievers, are among the most commonly prescribed medications in Canada. They are used to treat people with moderate-to-severe acute or chronic pain.

The researchers manually reviewed nearly 7,100 files at the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario.

 

They then linked these files with provincial data on physician visits and medication prescribing. They also analyzed data from IMS Health Canada - an organization that tracks the sales of prescription drugs.

Here are the researchers' key findings:

  • Prescriptions for oxycodone rose by more than 850 per cent during the study period. This increase was much larger than for any other opioid. Oxycodone accounted for about one-third of the almost 7.2 million prescriptions for opioids dispensed in Ontario in 2006.
     

  • The increase in deaths was especially pronounced after OxyContin was added to the provincial drug benefit plan in 2000. Over the next five years, deaths related to any opioid increased by 41 per cent, and the number of deaths related to oxycodone (the active ingredient in OxyContin) rose fivefold.
     

  • Deaths from prescription opioids in Ontario far outnumbered those from heroin.
     

  • Most opioid-related fatalities (54 per cent) were accidental. The manner of death was undetermined in 22 per cent of cases and deemed to be suicide in 24 per cent.
     

  • Most people whose deaths involved an opioid had visited a doctor and received a prescription for the drug in the month before they died.

"These findings highlight the tremendous societal burden of opioid-related morbidity and mortality and morbidity" says the study's co-author Dr. David Juurlink, a senior scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and a staff physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.

 

"Patients and doctors may not fully appreciate the potential danger of these drugs, particularly when they are taken in combination with other sedating drugs or alcohol."

Based on the study findings for Ontario, the estimated annual national incidence of opioid-related deaths in 2004 (27.2 deaths per million population) came somewhere between the incidence of death from HIV infection (12 deaths per million) and the incidence of death from sepsis, or severe infection (40 deaths per million).

To reduce the number of deaths related to opioid prescriptions, the researchers suggest the creation of real-time electronic databases accessible to physicians and pharmacists. This would make it harder for people to obtain opioids improperly from multiple doctors or pharmacies and easier for health care providers to predict and prevent potentially dangerous drug interactions.

 

The researchers also call for more and better education about the risks of opioid use and suggest greater restrictions on opioid prescribing.


About opioids and oxycodone
Opioids, also known as narcotic pain relievers, are among the most commonly prescribed medications in Canada.

 

They are used to treat people with moderate-to-severe acute or chronic pain. Opioids have many side effects, and can cause death by depressing breathing and decreasing consciousness.

OxyContin was introduced onto the public drug formulary in Ontario in 2000. The public formulary lists drugs that the province has agreed to pay for under its drug benefits plan.

 





 Deaths From Opioid Use Have Doubled, 5-Fold Increase in Oxycodone Deaths

by Kim Barnhardt

Canadian Medical Association Journal
December 7, 2009

from Eurekalert Website
 

Deaths from opioid use in Ontario, Canada, have doubled since 1991 and the addition of long-acting oxycodone to the drug formulary was associated with a 5-fold increase in oxycodone-related deaths, found a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Most of these additional deaths were accidental.

Opioids are among the most commonly prescribed medications in Canada and are often used for patients with chronic non-malignant pain. Other studies have argued that prescribing is not a major contributor to the adverse health effects of opioid abuse, yet this study suggests that increased rates of opioid prescriptions are a significant factor in accidental opioid-related deaths.

The study looked at prescribing data from 1991 to 2007 from IMS Health Canada, which collects information from almost two-thirds of Canadian pharmacies, and deaths attributed to opioid use from records of the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario between 1991 and 2004. It also linked the coroner's data to health care databases to track patients' medical visits.

Prescriptions for opioid pain medications increased by 29%, with codeine the most frequently prescribed, although the number of prescriptions for that drug declined during the study period. Oxycodone prescriptions rose more than 850%, much more rapidly than any other opioid, and accounted for 32% of the almost 7.2 million prescriptions for opioids dispensed in 2006.


Between 1991 and 2004,

  • 7099 deaths with complete records were attributed to alcohol and/or drugs

  • In 3406 of these deaths - 61.9% - opioids were implicated as cause of death

  • The median age of death was 40 years and 67% were men

  • Suicide was a factor in 23.6% of deaths

"The rise in opioid-related deaths was due in large part to inadvertent toxicity," write Dr. Irfan Dhalla, of the University of Toronto and coauthors. "There was no significant increase in the number of deaths from suicide involving opioids over the study period."

After linking the coroner's data to health care databases, the researchers included 3066 deaths.

 

Many (66.4%) of these patients had seen a physician at least once in the 4 weeks preceding their death, with diagnosis of mental health problems and pain-related complaints the most common reasons for medical attention.

"The societal burden of opioid-related mortality and morbidity in Canada is substantial," write the authors. "In our study, the annual incidence of opioid-related deaths in 2004 (27.2 million) falls between the incidence of death from HIV infection (12 per million) and sepsis (40 per million)."

They conclude that the frequency of visits to physicians and opioid prescriptions in the month before death suggest a missed opportunity for prevention.

In a related commentary (Deaths related to the use of prescription opioids), Dr. Benedikt Fischer of Simon Fraser University and coauthor write,

"the pre-eminent risk in most deaths was from the use of multiple drugs involving prescription opioids and other substances that are widely and legally dispensed."

As prescription drugs are involved in more overdose deaths than either heroin or cocaine in North America, the profile of the people who are dying may be changing from marginalized people to more "middle class."

 

The authors argue that governments must lead in developing a preventative strategy for this different demographic and refocus the federal drug policy that currently targets marginalized people.