US Surgeon General Warns Doctors in New Jersey, Rest of Country about Dangers of Prescription Drugs

The US surgeon general recently issued a call to doctors in New Jersey, New York, and everywhere else in the United States to help curb the rise in prescription drug abuse and addiction.

Dr. Vivek Murthy sent a letter addressed to every single doctor in the country and highlighted that prescription drug overdose deaths are causing a national nightmare. According to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), overdose deaths caused by prescription opioids have more than quadrupled since 1999. CDC statistics also indicate that 78 Americans die on a daily basis as a result of an opioid-related overdose. The problem is that prescription painkillers are being given out like candy on Halloween – only instead of causing cavities and destroying children’s teeth, they are causing fatal overdoses and destroying people’s lives.

Moreover, said Murthy, there are now so many prescription drugs being circulated among US residents that every adult in the country could potentially have a bottle of painkillers. Murthy called the prescription drug epidemic “an urgent health crisis” that is causing devastation in communities throughout the United States.

Murthy is asking doctors to take steps to ensure that prescription pills are not being given out to people who are at risk of addiction. Beyond that, Murthy wants doctors to monitor patients who have been prescribed painkillers and make sure that they are not becoming addicted to powerful narcotics.

This call to action is in stark contrast to the philosophy exercised by doctors over the past 20 years, during which time more and more doctors and physicians were urged to take aggressive actions when it came to treating patients’ pain. Worse yet, many doctors did not realize that prescription opioids could become addictive in these circumstances.

Another problem posed by prescription drug addiction is that it can lead to heroin addiction and heroin abuse. That’s because many people who are legally prescribed painkillers subsequently find themselves addicted to opioids and unable to afford the expensive prescription drugs. So these individuals turn to heroin, which is a much cheaper alternative to prescription narcotics but equally deadly.

To learn more about this case, access the following article: Surgeon general writes to every doctor in U.S. about opioid epidemic