Overdoses grow as US source for transplants

OVERDOSE deaths in the United States are fast catching up with car crashes as a source of organ donations, an unexpected consequence of the opioid crisis in North America, experts said Wednesday.

Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed what organ donation networks have been noticing for years – a steady uptick in organs available as a result of drug abuse.

In the year 2000, organs were donated from 59 people who had overdosed nationwide. By 2016, the number had soared to 1,029. By comparison, 1,356 donors died in car accidents that same year. Deaths from overdoses now account for 14 percent of organ donations in the United States, compared to one percent before the start of the opioid crisis considered a public health emergency by Congress and the administration of President Donald Trump.

Overdoses make up about one-quarter of organ donors in the hotbeds of the epidemic, such as the northeast, said David Klassen, chief medical officer at the United Network for Organ Sharing.

The phenomenon is almost nonexistent in Europe, where overdoses are linked to fewer than 1 percent of organ donations. But the trend has been seen in Canada, particularly in Vancouver, British Columbia, along the west coast, where the opioid crisis has exploded since 2016.

The powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl and heroin are the main drivers, as well as prescription painkillers like Oxycodone.

The number of people who died from opioid overdoses in the US climbed five-fold from 1999 to 2016, when it topped 42,000, authorities say.