Overdoses and suicides put an end to life expectancy in the United States

Life expectancy continued to decline in the United States in 2017 compared to 2014, a historic deterioration mainly due to the drug overdose crisis, but also to the increase in the number of suicides, according to health statistics released Thursday.

"This is the first time we have seen a downward trend since the great flu epidemic of 1918," Robert Anderson, head of mortality statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics, told AFP. Anderson pointed out, however, that the decline was much stronger in 1918.

In 2017, life expectancy at birth was 76.1 years for men and 81.1 years for women. The average population was 78.6 years, compared with 78.9 years in 2014.

In addition, they are three and a half years younger than in Canada, on the other side of the border and are also affected by overdoses.

"These statistics alert us to the fact that many Americans are losing preventable causes very quickly," said Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The scourge of drug overdose began in the early 2000s and its intensity has increased over the past four years.

In 2017, about 70,000 Americans died of overdoses, 10% more than in 2016.

In terms of death, Anderson compared this situation with the rise of the HIV epidemic, but with one difference: it has declined rapidly. The statistician expects overdoses to follow the same path. "We are a developed country, the life expectancy must increase, not decrease," he said.

Of the 35 OECD countries, only Iceland has recently experienced a decline in life expectancy, according to figures until 2016. In the rest of the countries, it has increased or stagnated.

Suicides also continued to increase in 2017 in the United States, reaching 47,000 deaths. Since 1999, the suicide rate has increased by 33%.

"We have a lot of work to do to reverse these trends," said Congressman Democrat Bill Foster.

– Opioids –

There are two categories of overdose. One for non-opioid drugs, such as cocaine and methamphetamine, and another for psychostimulants, for which about 27,000 people died.

But the increase is due largely to the second category: opiates.

This includes heroin, morphine, and semi-synthetic opiates, such as oxycodone, a prescription painkiller sold on the black market, with the help of doctors and complicit labs who claim to ignore it. the problem and that are often the gateway. to addiction.

More recently, most deaths are due to a new generation of drugs: synthetic opiates, such as fentanyl, dozens of times stronger than heroin, with which the slightest dose error can be fatal. Some 28,000 Americans died in 2017 of fentanyl or similar drugs.

"The opiate market is now completely dominated by fentanyl," said Joshua Sharfstein, former health executive in Maryland, currently at the Johns Hopkins University, Washington Post.

The death rate from synthetic opiates doubled from 2015 to 2016. It increased by 45% last year.

But the figures of 2017 have revealed a detail that gives a relative hope: the number of overdoses continues to grow, but at a slower pace.

Preliminary data for 2018 even suggests that the crisis peaked earlier this year. "But it's hard to say," because there is only data for a few months at the moment, a cautious Robert Anderson said.

In Staten Island, New York, Dr Harshal Kirane, Director of the Addiction Service, avoids hasty conclusions. "It is encouraging to see that the trajectory is curved, no doubt," he told AFP. "But 70,000 dead, it's still hard to digest."

Not all countries are equally affected by this scourge. Central states, from Texas to South Dakota, are relatively safe.

The crisis is acute in New England, in the northeast corner, where overdose deaths account for more than a quarter of organ donations, which is comparable to road accidents.

It is also very strong in two states of the old industrial belt (Ohio and Pennsylvania) and particularly in the very poor West Virginia, which ranks first with the sad figure of 58 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, compared with a national average of 22