Drug Overdoses Rising as Accidental Poisoning Surpasses Vehicular Deaths

The leading cause of death from unintentional injury has been for a few years accidental poisoning, which took the place of car-related deaths.  Now, however, the data is showing that most of the poisoning is from prescription drugs such as methadone.  Many of the deaths resulted, in part, from use in combination with alcohol or other drugs.

Drug-related deaths are increasing steadily in Wisconsin with the rate of fatal methadone overdoses jumping by 1,000 percent.

A report compiled by UW-Whitewater epidemiologist David Nordstrom shows that from 1999 to 2008 nearly 5,000 deaths were certified as drug-related, “That’s more than one every day and we found out that the majority of them were males and the average was about 43.”

Links: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/11/suicide-and-poisoning-rate-increased.aspx

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