The search for the perfect painkiller
by Nic Fleming from on (#3EFM8)
Millions of Americans are hooked on painkillers - thousands die as a result. Scientists are striving to design a new, safer generation of opioids
Only the word "epidemic" really does justice to the scale of human tragedy caused by opioid drug use in America.
How else can we describe 145 largely avoidable deaths a day? Opioids - mostly prescribed as painkillers or obtained illicitly by those hooked through previous treatment - killed 53,000 people in the United States in 2016 - more than guns or road accidents. That same year saw deaths caused by synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, double to 20,145.
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