News
Please find news, research, and eye-opening statistics about the opioid crisis in Missouri and across the country here.
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Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley files lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley filed a lawsuit Wednesday against three of the largest manufacturers of opioids, accusing the companies of violating Missouri’s consumer protection laws. Read More about Josh Hawley’s lawsuit -
Report: 1.6 Billion Opioid Doses Poured Into Missouri Over 6 Years
Over the last six years, enough opioids were shipped to the state of Missouri to give every resident 260 pills. The finding comes from a report released Thursday by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. It’s the latest in a series of investigations by the senator into the role of drugmakers, distributors and other industry players in fueling the opioid epidemic. Read More about this Report -
‘Opioid overdose epidemic continues to worsen and evolve,’ CDC says
Illegally manufactured fentanyl was the driving force behind a 45.2% increase in deaths involving synthetic opioids from 2016 to 2017, according to a new report published Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read More from the CDC -
In lawsuit, Missouri says big pharma caused opioid crisis with ‘campaign of fraud and deception’
Helen Fabick was an honors student who in February 2014 was supposed to attend a daddy-daughter dance at her high school. Instead, the 17-year-old’s father found her dead in her bed. Read More about Missouri’s Lawsuit -
Addressing America’s Fentanyl Crisis
Every day, 91* Americans fatally overdose on an opioid drug. It may be a prescription analgesic or heroin—4-8 percent of people who misuse painkillers transition to heroin—but increasingly it is likely to be heroin’s much more potent synthetic cousin fentanyl. In the space of only two years, fentanyl has tragically escalated the opioid crisis. Read More about America’s Fentanyl Crisis -
Unwise and unnecessary: Opioids for wisdom teeth extractions
A few days before extracting my teenager’s wisdom teeth, an oral surgeon wrote him a prescription for painkillers. My son filled it but never felt a need for anything stronger than ibuprofen. Three years later, I found an unopened bottle of Percocet — an opioid — in the back of a bathroom cabinet. Read More about Opioids Use -
Odds of dying from accidental opioid overdose in the US surpass those of dying in car accident
For the first time on record the odds of accidentally dying from an opioid overdose in the United States are now greater than those of dying in an automobile accident. The grim finding comes from the National Safety Council which analyzed preventable injury and fatality statistics from 2017. Read More about the Opioid Overdose Statistics
Statistics
