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CDC: Rate of drug-induced deaths outpaced car crashes in 16 states, with sharp increase in cocaine ODs.
ATLANTA — Drug-related deaths outnumber those from motor vehicle accidents in a growing number of states – including Pennsylvania, according to new government data that highlight a shift in the top cause of deaths after disease and illness.
Crashes still cost more lives nationwide, but state-by-state calculations show the rate of drug-induced deaths outpaced vehicle accidents in 16 states in 2006, up from about a dozen states the year before and eight in 2003.
Drug overdoses make up the vast majority of the drug-related deaths, and there was a sharp increase in fatalities tied to cocaine and to drugs known as opioid analgesics — including methadone, fentanyl, sedatives and prescription painkillers.
From 1999 to 2006, death rates for opioid analgesics increased for every age group. Deaths from methadone alone increased sevenfold, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released Wednesday.
Based on death certificate data, CDC researchers counted more than 45,000 U.S. deaths from motor-vehicle crashes in 2006, and about 39,000 from drug-induced causes. The CDC does not have finalized data for 2007 or subsequent years.
About 90 percent of those drug fatalities are sudden deaths from overdoses, but the count includes people who died from organ damage from long-term drug use or abuse.
The 2006 death counts and death rates were higher for drugs than for vehicle accidents in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
It’s not clear why certain states have seen such a shift. There are probably a variety of reasons, and the explanation may vary a bit from state to state, said Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the CDC.