Fentanyl deaths among children and adolescents have increased 40-fold over the past two decades, shocking numbers show.
Analysis of official overdose data shows that in 1999 there were only nine fentanyl-related deaths among those under the age of 20. But by 2021, that number had risen to 1,550.
The surge has taken the mortality rate from 0.05 fentanyl-related deaths per 100,000 youth to 1.92 — or a 3,740 percent increase.
dr Julie Gaither, a pediatrician at the Yale School of Medicine who performed the analysis, urged parents to hide any medication or drug residue that might have fentanyl laced in it.
This includes keeping medications in cupboards out of the reach of children and cleaning surfaces where drugs have been used, such as mirrors or counters. She also said more homes should stock up on naloxone, an over-the-counter drug that can reverse a fatal fentanyl overdose.
The chart above shows how deaths from fentanyl (yellow line) have skyrocketed in children under the age of 20 in the United States
Lydie and Boris Lavenir from Guadeloupe – a French island – never thought they would put their 19-month-old daughter Enora down for a nap without her waking up (left). Seven-month-old Babu girl Zhuri Sade Bogle died in January of a fentanyl overdose
Fentanyl is up to 50 times more potent than heroin and extremely deadly – just two milligrams can kill an adult.
Many black market drug dealers mix it with other drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines so users don’t know they are taking it.
In recent years, several deaths have been reported in children taking the drug after touching contaminated surfaces.
Last month, it was revealed that 19-month-old Enora Lavenir died after taking fentanyl while staying at an Airbnb in Florida.
Her parents have sued the company for advertising the property as “peaceful,” arguing it’s regularly used as a party house.
dr Gaither warned in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, “The results of this study suggest that the pediatric opioid crisis is changing in ways that are making it more difficult to manage.
“Prudent solutions (e.g. safe storage and disposal) are still needed to prevent children from being exposed to opioids.
“But a greater emphasis on harm reduction strategies is needed, including treating parental and adolescent opioid use disorders and improving access to naloxone in the home, where most pediatric deaths from fentanyl occur.”
For her research, between 1999 and 2021, she searched the CDC database for opioid-related deaths among people under the age of 20.
Deaths have been converted to rates per 100,000 to account for population growth.
Overall, there were 13,862 opioid-related deaths among adolescents, of which 5,194 (37 percent) involved fentanyl.
The majority of deaths (89.6 percent) affected youth aged 15 to 19 years and children aged 0 to 4 years (6.6 percent).
Fentanyl users lie passed out in the dirt while a third sits unconscious within sight of the Capitol building in Sacramento, California, in the Capitol Mall itself. The state capital isn’t immune to the homelessness and drug problems plaguing U.S. cities, while the solutions are few and far between
About 87.5 percent of the deaths were unintentional, 43.8 percent occurred while the child was at home.
During the two decades covered by the research, America’s opioid epidemic has evolved into a fentanyl crisis.
The opioid crisis began in the 1990s when pharmaceutical companies began aggressively marketing opioid pain relievers as a safe and effective way to treat chronic pain.
The companies convinced doctors that the risk of addiction was low, prompting them to write prescriptions for millions of Americans.
Many patients then eventually turned to the black market to continue taking the drugs after becoming addicted, with many turning to heroin as a cheaper and more accessible alternative.
The fentanyl crisis began in the early 2010s when the powerful tranquilizer was mixed with other synthetic opioids in the US to increase their potency.
But that also made the drugs a lot more dangerous as even small amounts can be deadly, increasing the risk of death from ingesting the drugs.
The data showed that deaths from fentanyl and all opioids among adolescents remained reasonably stable through 2013, around the time fentanyl appeared in the US drug supply.
But they’ve since risen more than 30-fold, with the increase being attributed to increasing black-market use of the drug.
In 1999 there were 175 deaths from opioid drugs – including fentanyl – among children and adolescents. But by 2021, that number had risen to 1,657.
The proportion of fentanyl increased from five percent to 94 percent in the reporting period.
As for under-four mortality rates, under-four mortality rates increased six-fold between 2018 and 2021 — from 0.1 to 0.69 fentanyl-related deaths per 100,000 deaths.
In 2021, fentanyl was responsible for the deaths of 40 infants and 93 children aged one to four years.
For adolescents aged 15 to 19, the rate tripled from 1.67 to 6.51 over the same period.
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