Prescription drug deaths rising

Prescription drugs

The number of prescription drug deaths has steadily been rising in the US. Now unintentional poisoning deaths are second only to motor vehicle deaths for unintentional injury in the US and that number has been rising since 1992, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among people 35 to 54 years old, unintentional poisoning surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of unintentional injury death in 2005.

The new study, published in the May edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, finds that US hospitalizations for poisoning by prescription opioids, sedatives and tranquilizers have jumped 65 percent from 1999 to 2006. That number is almost twice the increase in hospitalizations for poisonings by all other drugs and medicinal substances.

"People have seen the headlines related to Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith and they think that's tragic but maybe contained to Hollywood," Dr. Jeffrey H.Coben of West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown told Reuters Health.

"But the fact of the matter is we are seeing, across the country, very significant increases in serious overdoses associated with these prescription drugs,"Coben warned.

"The public needs to understand that prescription medications are just as dangerous as street drugs like heroin and cocaine, and they shouldn't have a false sense of security just because they are taking prescription drugs," Coben said. "It's important to use those drugs exactly as prescribed and not in combination with other drugs."

The study

The authors examined records of hospitalizations for poisonings, using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), the largest all-payer inpatient care database in the US. The NIS contains data on more than seven million hospital stays from approximately 1000 hospitals and is often used for developing national and regional estimates for hospitalization trends.

Estimated hospitalizations for poisoning by prescription opioids, sedatives, and tranquilizers increased a total of 65 percent from 1999 to 2006. In comparison, hospitalizations for poisonings by other drugs and substances increased only 33 percent. Intentional poisonings from prescription opioids , sedatives, and tranquilizers rose by 130 percent compared with intentional poisonings from other substances during the same period. And the most dramatic increase in poisoning hospitalizations during the seven-year period was for methadone, which increased 400 percent, CNN report.

When it came to the reason behind an increase in overdosing, researchers said that it could be down to the easier access of acquiring prescription drugs, and the attitude that young people have towards them.

The researchers stated that often young people think that prescription drugs are safer for them than street drugs when it comes to getting high, and that they are less addicting, both of which are not totally true at all.

Jodie Humphries

Jodie Humphries graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA Hons in Creative Writing in 2008. She has worked for GDS Publishing for the digital group since July 2009. She has previous experience with writing for the web, running her own website since April 2007.

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