Overall, the age-adjusted rate increased 31.0%, from 21.6 per 100,000 in 2019 to 28.3 in 2020. From 2019 to 2020, the rate for males increased from 29.6 to 39.5, and the rate for females increased from 13.7 to 17.1. 

The CDC monitors infectious disease outbreaks, working with state and local public health departments to monitor the same issues regionally. In this capacity, the CDC reports on and cautions about problems as they arise in communities, which could spread across the country. For example, the CDC’s Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) database has been used to track cause of death in communities and associate it with drug overdose and opioid overdose

 including social justice concerns, economic equality, and the current social stigmas associated with mental illness. Substance misuse and addiction existed long before the current opioid epidemic, but the destruction they wreak has never been as damaging and as costly as now.

part of the scientific process for drug approval, historically, the FDA has focused on efficacy and safety

If the FDA becomes aware of drug advertising that is inconsistent with FDA-approved product labeling, it issues the drug manufacturer a written notice requesting that the material be withdrawn.

 the FDA has been criticized for being “captured” by the very industry it is supposed to regulate—the pharmaceutical industry—based on how the FDA receives its financial resources from industry and the perceived favors associated with relationships between FDA regulators and industry.

example, news stories have documented how FDA employees who worked on opioid regulation accepted high-paying jobs with Purdue—the company at the epicenter of current lawsuits.44 This raises the question of whether appropriate procedures and firewalls are in place to prevent the ethical compromises that can occur when the regulator is “captured” by industry. Since states rely on the federal government to perform these critical roles, it is important to assess whether that will prevent the next epidemic.

Because all prescription opioid pain medications are subject to Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System reporting by distributors, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has rich data on the flow of opioids to pharmacies across the country. As reports have shown, these medications were flowing to pharmacies that were facilitating their illegal use or flooding certain communities with significantly higher volumes of pain medications than could be justified based on the health needs of the patient populations in these communities.

Former senior administrators within the DEA argue that the agency had gathered thorough evidence documenting that certain opioid distributors were not in compliance with the Federal Controlled Substances Act,46 allegedly turning a blind eye to knowledge that the drugs they were distributing were being used for illegal purposes, thus catalyzing opioid addiction across the United States.47-49