Deaths from drug overdoses are starting to “plateau,” Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday, arguing that the epidemic remains dire but that President Trump’s efforts are paying dividends.
The number of deaths climbed 10 percent from 2016 to 2017 but rose just 3.5 percent in the 12-month period ending in March, said Mr. Azar, citing provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The seemingly relentless trend of rising overdose deaths seems to be finally bending in the right direction,” Mr. Azar told the Milken Institute, an economic think tank, before a bill-signing designed to take a bigger swipe at the opioid crisis.
Mr. Azar said opioids alone resulted in 48,000 deaths in 2017, as powerful synthetic drugs such as fentanyl continued to flood the heroin supply. The total number of overdose deaths in 2017 was reported at 70,000.
“Plateauing at such a high level is hardly an opportunity to declare victory, but the concerted efforts of communities across America are beginning to turn the tide,” he said. “We are so far from the end of the epidemic, but we are perhaps at the end of the beginning.”
Mr. Azar said Mr. Trump is making a difference.
Since the president took office in January 2017, the number of patients receiving buprenorphine — a key form of opioid addiction treatment — has increased by 21 percent, and prescriptions for another treatment, naltrexone, are up 47 percent, Mr. Azar said.
Prescriptions for overdose-reversing naloxone are way up, while the share of Medicare enrollees receiving excessive amounts of opioids from multiple doctors has dropped, he said.
Members of both major political parties see opioid addiction as a pressing issue that transcends partisan bitterness.
Congress started to pass bipartisan bills to address the crisis during President Obama’s tenure and continued their efforts under Mr. Trump, who declared opioid addiction to be a public health emergency.
Federal lawmakers appropriated more than $8 billion to deal with the problem this year and made a series of policy changes in a sweeping bill that Mr. Trump is scheduled to sign in a White House ceremony Wednesday.
“It’s clearly the most important new health care law this year,” Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told The Washington Times.
The mammoth bill allows the Food and Drug Administration to require drugmakers to package certain opioids in three- or seven-day supply “blister packs” so patients don’t get more pills than they need. It also gives the National Institutes of Health authority to devote more funding to the development of nonaddictive painkillers.
The legislation urges states to share information from their prescription drug monitoring programs so they catch patients who are “doctor shopping” across borders, and extends treatment options to addicted mothers and their babies, who may be born with withdrawal symptoms.
In that vein, Mr. Azar on Tuesday announced the creation of the “maternal opioid misuse” model, in which state Medicaid programs will work with local health care providers to make sure addicted mothers are given a coordinated set of services, including maternity and delivery care, medication-assisted treatment for their addictions and follow-up primary care.
Mr. Alexander this year visited the neonatal center at a children’s hospital in Johnson City, Tennessee, and found that 10 of 30 babies in the unit were being treated for opioid withdrawal because of drug exposure before birth.
First lady Melania Trump recently visited affected families in Philadelphia to highlight the opioid epidemic’s impact on newborns.
“It’s a significant part of the problem,” Mr. Alexander said.
Democrats supported the latest opioids bill but say Mr. Trump hasn’t done enough, that billions of dollars in additional funding is needed and that White House budget plans could move backward by curtailing federal Medicaid spending that can help pay for treatment.
“While President Trump’s repeated failures to live up to his promises are disappointing, I’m glad Congress has been able to lead the way on taking meaningful steps to help the families and communities on the front lines of this crisis by providing additional funds and passing a comprehensive bill to address the root causes and ripple effects of this epidemic,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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