The White House Commission on the Opioid Crisis in the United States calls on the President to treat the epidemic as a national emergency.
Take stock of the seriousness of the situation. Prioritize, act quickly and before anything else. The White House Commission on the Opioid Overuse Crisis has called on Donald Trump to declare this phenomenon a national emergency in order to address the deadly epidemic raging in the United States. The members of this bipartisan Commission made this request the “first and most urgent recommendation”.
“With about 143 Americans dying every day [d’une overdose d’opioïdes], America endures a balance sheet equivalent to that of September 11 every three days ”, write in a report the members of this Commission created by Donald Trump in March.
Force action
Declaring this epidemic as a national emergency made it possible to “strengthen the power of the cabinet [de Donald Trump] in order to adopt tough measures, and force Congress to look at effective funding and measures, ”they argued.
The Commission has also proposed to drop a federal law that limits the number of people with addiction who can benefit from medical coverage. She also called for expanding access to treatment against opioid dependence, including naloxone, an antidote to opioid overdoses. Finally, she asked that educational initiatives be put in place for prescribers.
50,000 deaths in 2015
In the United States, two million Americans have developed an addiction to opioid-based pain relievers. Opioid overdoses killed 50,000 people in the country last year, officials said, citing a major public health crisis. A study recently published by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine shows 36% of Americans received a prescription for opioid drugs in 2015.
Several states (Arizona, Florida, Maryland and Virginia) have already declared a state of health emergency on their own territory.
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