Death of opioids may begin on Plateau, says HHS chief

The American opioid crisis is far from over, but early data indicates that the number of deaths is starting to stabilize, according to Alex Azar, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, citing "encouraging results" "in overdose trends.

In a speech delivered at a Milken Institute health summit Tuesday, Azar reviewed statistics suggesting that deaths were stabilizing. He highlighted the efforts that he said could reverse the trend of the drug epidemic.

In 2017, the number of Americans who died from opioid overdoses rose from 64,000 the year before to 72,000. However, according to new interim data from the Centers for Disease Control, the numbers have stopped to increase until the end of 2017, a trend that continued at the beginning of this year.

He "finally leans in the right direction," said Azar.

He added that the death toll of the victim is "barely a victory", especially at such high levels. Current government statistics show that opioids kill more than 115 Americans every day.

"We are so far from the end of the epidemic, but we may be at the end of the beginning," he said.

Azar, a former pharmaceutical lobbyist and pharmaceutical company executive, said the Trump administration's Health and Social Services department had warned of addiction by promoting evidence-based pain management and supporting services. treatment and recovery.

"In simple terms, the United States has prescribed, and still prescribes, an astonishing amount of potentially addictive pain medications," he said.

The fight against the epidemic of opioid overdoses has been one of the few large-scale bipartisan efforts of recent years in an otherwise politicized country.

President Barack Obama has expanded treatment options for opioid users and is lobbying Congress to get hundreds of millions of dollars to fight the epidemic.

On Wednesday, President Trump is expected to sign a recently passed congressional bill that expands Medicaid opioid treatment programs and workforce training initiatives, and supports FDA research to find new options for the relief of non-opioid pain.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.