November 27, 2012
Story at-a-glance
One American dies every 19 minutes from an accidental prescription drug overdose, a phenomenon now being described as “the biggest man-made epidemic in the United States”
Americans consume 80 percent of the pain pills in the world, and once they start, they set off a cascade of reactions in the body that make it difficult to stop taking them
One of the most commonly abused drug classes are painkillers (opioids) like morphine, codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and fentanyl. These drugs are not only addictive, they can lead to slowed breathing and death if too much is taken, and the risks are compounded if you add alcohol to the equation
It’s not only painkillers that are the problem; 75 percent of patients taking Plavix or Effient, two common blood-thinning drugs, may be receiving the wrong doses, new research found, which would put them at risk of uncontrolled bleeding or blood clots
FULL STORY
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