A panel of government health advisers said Friday there’s no clear evidence that a harder-to-crush version of the painkiller OxyContin designed to discourage abuse actually resulted in fewer overdoses or deaths.
The conclusion from the Food and Drug Administration advisory panel comes more than a decade after Purdue Pharma revamped its blockbuster opioid, which has long been blamed for sparking a surge in painkiller abuse beginning in the 1990s.
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The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is reporting significant increases in opioid overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
MDHHS reported emergency medical services (EMS) in the state responded to a 33 percent increase in opioid overdoses from April to May of this year. The department adds that opioid overdoses increased by 26 percent from the prior year during the period between April and June.
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Franklin County in Ohio saw another surge in drug-related overdoses last weekend, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Dr. Anahi Ortiz, the Franklin County coroner, told The Dispatch that 11 people had died.
Since the Wuhan virus came to Ohio, Franklin County has been one of state’s hardest-hit areas in terms of overdoses.
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