Vox reports that opioids may be killing thousands more people each year than we previously thought. Vox cites a new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, reporting that actual opioid deaths for 2014 being 24 percent higher than previously estimated.
Source: Opioids may be killing thousands more people each year than we previously thought – Vox
In Summer 2017, I’m uncomfortable with 2014 data. We know that opioids are highly addictive and although President Trump declared a national emergency on Thursday, the US government is probably way behind the curve.
In an epidemic or pandemic, the trend lines show exponential type deterioration. So key questions are:
- How much worse is the data in 2017 than 2014 according to best estimates?
- What’s the projection for say the next three years?
- When can we expect Trump’s national emergency to start halting the deterioraiation and then improving matters to say pre-2014 levels?
Thoughts?
Dr Alf's Blog 
I suspect the answers to Dr Alf’s 3 questions are :
1) 25%
2) A rise of 100% based on the increased rate of job destruction by AI and technology,the realisation that Donald Trump is powerless to “bring the jobs back” and rising divorce rates as woman move away at warp speed from their newly impoverished husbands,a phenomenon observed with forensic precision by Professor Andrew Oswald in the UK looking at causes for divorce on this side of the water which follow American trends.
3)Never,because he will soon be out of office and because the proposed measures do not deal with factors in the American workplace and way of life which are driving opiate use in the first instance.