Grimly Enough, It Looks Like The Opioid Crisis Will Worsen Before It Becomes Better, Claiming Half A Million More Lives Over The Next Decade

Alex Photo - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
Alex Photo - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purpose only, not the actual person

Since 1999, nearly five hundred thousand people have lost their lives due to the opioid epidemic.

The crisis began in the 1990s when medical providers began prescribing opioids at rapid rates, and pharmaceutical companies “reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted,” according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Consequently, two more waves of opioid deaths followed– one beginning in 2010 that led to a drastic increase in heroin overdoses and a second that began in 2013 due to synthetic opioids such as those containing fentanyl.

Over the past decades, people across the nation have wondered why medical providers continued to provide patients with drugs that are proven to be severely harmful.

Then, in 2020, Purdue Pharma– one of the largest opioid manufacturers– pleaded guilty to “conspiracies to defraud the United States and violate the anti-kickback statute.”

Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen described how “the abuse and diversion of prescription opioids have contributed to a national tragedy of addiction and deaths,” leaving many people hopeful that the guilty plea would help curb the epidemic once and for all.

Unfortunately, though, a new data-driven simulation has revealed that the opioid crisis is projected to get much worse before it gets better.

Mohammad Jalali created the model– an investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School– in collaboration with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The simulation– called SOURCE– is now the most in-depth nationwide model of the opioid crisis ever to be created.

Alex Photo – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person

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And according to the model’s projections, over five hundred thousand more lives will be claimed by the opioid epidemic over the next decade.

This staggering number is no longer due to people misusing prescription opioids or even heroin– which have both been declining. Instead, the massive death toll will be due to fentanyl overdoses.

SOURCE did not just predict the epidemic’s future, though. It has also allowed researchers to come up with eleven different prevention strategies– three of which have the potential to save over one hundred thousand lives.

In order to be effective, though, the three plans of action must be implemented together. They include fentanyl harm reduction, naloxone (Narcan) distribution, and increased support for people recovering from opioid use disorder (OUD).

This demographic is the most at risk of overdosing due to the potential to relapse.

Dr. Jalali believes that looking at the opioid epidemic from this macro standpoint is the only way to combat it successfully.

“This broader perspective is critical to making progress. It is like playing whack-a-mole. If you don’t look at the whole system and its interconnected parts, then fixing one aspect of the problem can make other aspects worse,” Dr. Jalil said.

But, SOURCE’s findings will have to be acted upon soon before it is too late.

“If we wait for this crisis to peak, it will be too late. We need to use these strategies together, and now, in order for them to have maximum impact,” said Erin Stringfellow, a co-author of the study and Harvard Medical School research fellow.

To learn more about SOURCE and read the study’s complete findings published in Science Advances, you can visit the link here.

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Katharina Buczek graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Digital Arts. Specializing ... More about Katharina Buczek

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