America is Fucked
Out of context: Reply #1235
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- utopian4
The opioid crisis is 'a unique product' of U.S. health care, paper argues.
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A working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) argues that the decades-long U.S. opioid crisis is “a unique product of specific policies and features of the U.S. health care market” that remain in effect.
“Without the opioid epidemic, American life expectancy would not have declined in recent years,” the paper stated. “In turn, the epidemic was sparked by the development and marketing of a new generation of prescription opioids and provider behavior [that] is still helping to drive it.”
In December 1995, the FDA approved a new opioid known as Oxycodone. Subsequently, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), “pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and health care providers began to prescribe them at greater rates.” A blizzard of prescriptions followed.
An estimated 21-29% of patients who are prescribed opioids for chronic pain end up misusing them, according to NIDA, while 8-12% develop an opioid use disorder.
Tens of millions of Americans became addicted to prescription opioids and tens of thousands died of overdoes in the two decades that followed. In recent years, the overdose crisis accelerated after synthetic opioids like fentanyl began flooding the U.S
- One of the weird things I always notice when coming back to the US from overseas is the endless bombardment of commercials for various medicationsyuekit
- always ending in a disclaimer of all the horrible potential side effects lol. Just not something you will ever see in most countries.yuekit
- Canada has it too, though... does it not?********
- ^ we get to see those commercial in Canada . So weird. And always some new, made up, affliction to be conqueredGnash
- We only get the commercials because of proximity. They are on US stationsGnash
- Although, I’ve never seen a commercial for opioidsGnash
- No I meant Canada has an epidemic. It’s not uniquely a US issue. Is it?********
- Oh ya. Big time problemGnash