I doubt it. An acute acetaminophen overdose is harder than it sounds. The best data I could find states it is about 500 people per year. And death via acetaminophen overdose is not a simple affair, you have to wait for your liver to fail first and then die from that, which takes days.
Well, the medical profession, presumably. Maybe nationalise it, and make sure all their systems talk to each other?
(yes, I know, this is ludicrously difficult for various reasons, but that doesnât mean itâs not a good idea)
Since the doctors themselves are already privy, some kind of buddy system, or peer review would seem like the best bet. Make doctors responsible for reviewing a handful of anonymous case / prescription histories each month? And give the penalties for falsifying records real PMITA teeth?
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What the fucking fuck?
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Meanwhile, marijuana is still illegal within the [cough] lesser statesâŚ
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Iâm a chronic pain patient, but here in Colorado and I have to go to a specialist for these types of drugs. I have to sign a contract with the doctor to take them exactly as prescribed, and Iâm piss tested regularly to make sure Iâm really taking them and not selling them off, and they can randomly ask for me to bring in my supply for counting, plus a lot of other rules.
Thatâs not the norm in CO with prescription drugs. At least, not with anyone Iâve known. Are you referring to a specific kind of prescription narcotic or perhaps just your own situation? I was in the hospital some years ago in CO and after I was discharged I was prescribed heavy pain killers with refills, but I didnât have any kind of monitoring at all.
When did they start doing this to you? After 2007? And, is this your employer or the government monitoring you?
So they are not thrown at people like candy here.
Well, this isnât Florida.
The headline is false, and the first sentence is misleading.
The most recent data I could find (2010) says that only 16,551 deaths were due to to prescription narcotics. In that same year, 32,885 people died in traffic crashes.
It is probably true â and it was in 2008 â that poisoning kills more people than car crashes, but that includes all poisonings, including illegal drugs. Drug poisoning accounted for 36,500, of which 25% were attributed to drugs other than rx narcotics. About 35% of drug poisonings did not have an identified drug; even assuming that all those deaths were also due to rx narcotics, thatâs 27,735 deaths total. Traffic fatalities in 2008 were 37,423 â more than drug poisoning, and significantly more than the worst-case math for rx narcotics.
So poisonings kill more people than traffic fatalities, of which drug poisonings are the major share, of which rx narcotics are definitely a large share and probably a major share.
But there is no evidence at all that âmore in US die each year from prescription narcotics than car crashesâ.
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Thanks for the numbers (and to others above). More than car crashes was pretty shocking until it turned out it wasnât true.
I went to a similar clinic in Dallas, TX - contract, peeing in a cup every time I went in to the doctor, strict monitoring of refills, and the doctor having the right to call any of my other doctors to make sure I wasnât receiving prescriptions from any of them.
Then I moved to Houston, and the doctor here is much more laissez faire. Sheâs still a specialist in pain relief, and I think if I started calling every 15 days for a refill - instead of every 25, which is the minimum period of time - sheâd have an intervention, or reassess my treatment. I did sign a contract when I began treatment, but I have yet to have a drug test (though they can demand one at any time).
I think it depends mostly on the level of CYA the clinic feels the need to have.
Ya, even the summaries from detailed death report donât support the headline: (overall drug deaths, yes â not prescription narcotics).
In 2010, a total of 40,393 persons died of drug-induced causes in the United States (Tables 10, 12, and 13). This category includes deaths from poisoning and medical conditions caused by use of legal or illegal drugs, as well as deaths from poisoning due to medically prescribed and other drugs. It excludes unintentional injuries, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to drug use, as well as newborn deaths due to the motherâs drug use. In 2010, the age-adjusted death rate for drug-induced causes for the U.S. population increased 2.4%, from 12.6 in 2009 to 12.9 in 2010
Motor vehicle trafficâIn 2010, motor vehicle traffic-related injuries resulted in 33,687 deaths, accounting for 18.6% of all injury deaths (Table 18). The age-adjusted death rate for these injuries decreased 3.6% from 11.1 per 100,000 standard population in 2009 to 10.7 in 2010.The graph of age-adjusted death rates looks more impressive:
This is the closest that I could find to a quantitative number on prescription narcotics (2010 data):
From 1999 to 2010, the number of U.S. drug poisoning deaths involving any opioid analgesic (e.g., oxycodone, methadone, or hydrocodone) more than quadrupled, from 4,030 to 16,651, accounting for 43% of the 38,329 drug poisoning deaths and 39% of the 42,917 total poisoning deaths in 2010.
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In related WTF newsâŚ
Anything over 4000mg a day can cause an overdose on acetaminophen. Given that pills regularly come in 325mg size, its easy to imagine taking the 12 or so to make that happen. In fact, acetaminophen poisoning is one of the most common ways people are poisoned. As to how often this leads to death, its hard to say because many deaths that may have been caused by acetaminophen can easily be attributed to another cause (like liver failure), and its likely that taking doses that wonât kill you if taken for one or two days may do so if taken for much longer periods, which people often do thinking its a safe drug.
There are 500mg pills sold over the counter too. Plus they add that shit to so many other medications as a way to stop people from taking too much cough syrup or codeine.
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And lets also not forget that the 4000mg limit is for people of average weight, which means the limit is much lower for a vast swathe of the populace.
And higher for another section of the population (though Iâm not going to test it out).
Well, and while weight is obvious, there are a presumably a number of other factors that vary, most of which will be unknown. Someone will simply be less tolerant than someone else.
Until recent revelations about acetaminophen I had always assumed that it was probably safe to take twice or three times the âdaily limitâ of pills. Like Iâm sure an elevator wonât fall to the ground at twice itâs âmaximum load.â I didnât take massive overdoses of pills and I didnât try cramming fifty people into an elevator, but it just seems like good sense that since we canât predict all the variable, we play it on the safe side. You canât know if a cable can hold 1000kg unless you hang 1000kg from it and see if it snaps. You canât know if a person can take 4000mg of a drug and be fine unless you give them 4000mg and see what happens to them.
The fact that bottles that say âdonât take more than 8 a dayâ are not stopping you halfway, but rather stopping you right up against the line is a little frightening. Iâm glad the engineers who design elevators donât think the same way.
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