Dayton Daily News

U.S. health chief says OD deaths leveling off

Deaths aren’t going down, but are rising at a slower rate.

- By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Carla K. Johnson

The number WASHINGTON — of U.S. drug overdose deaths has begun to level off after years of relentless increases driven by the opioid epidemic, Health Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday, cautioning it’s too soon to declare victory.

“We are so far from the end of the epidemic, but we are perhaps at the end of the beginning,” Azar said in prepared remarks for a health care event sponsored by the Milken Institute think tank.

Confrontin­g the opioid epidemic has been the rare issue uniting Republican­s and Democrats in a politicall­y divided nation. A bill providing major funding for treatment was passed under former President Barack Obama, and two more have followed under President Donald Trump.

More than 70,000 people died of drug overdoses last year, according to preliminar­y numbers released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this summer— a 10 percent increase from 2016. Health and Human Services — the department Azar heads — is playing a central role in the government’s response.

Azar suggested that multiprong­ed efforts to bring the epidemic under control are paying off. He ticked off statistics showing an increase in treatment with medication­s such as buprenorph­ine and naltrexone. There’s solid evidence backing medication-assisted treatment, when used alongside counseling and ongoing support. He also noted much broader access to the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and a documented decline in the number of people misusing prescripti­on opioids.

Azar said that toward the end of last year and through the beginning of this year, the number of deaths “has begun to plateau.” Azar was not indicating that deaths are going down, but noting that they appear to be rising at a slower rate.

Despite the slowdown, the nation is still in the midst of the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in its history. Opioids were involved in most of the deaths, killing nearly 48,000 people last year.

While prescripti­on opioid and heroin deaths appear to be leveling off, deaths involving fentanyl, cocaine and methamphet­amines are on the rise. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid much more powerful than heroin, used as an additive in street drugs.

In Obama’s last year in office, his administra­tion secured a commitment to expand treatment and Congress provided $1 billion in grants to states. Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency. Two major funding bills have passed under his watch. While Trump got headlines with his call for using the death penalty against major drug dealers, his administra­tion has built on the treatment approach that Obama favored.

The Medicaid expansion in Obama’s Affordable Care Act has also played a critical role, paying for low-income adults to go into treatment. A recent Associated Press analysis showed that states that expanded Medicaid are spending their new opioid grant money from Congress more judiciousl­y, going beyond basics like treatment for people in crisis. Trump tried to repeal the Medicaid expansion, but failed.

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 ?? ALEX WONG / GETTY IMAGES ?? “We are so far from the end of the epidemic, but we are perhaps at the end of the beginning,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar says.
ALEX WONG / GETTY IMAGES “We are so far from the end of the epidemic, but we are perhaps at the end of the beginning,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar says.

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