PRESCRIPTION DRUG DEATHS IN TEXAS VASTLY UNDERCOUNTED Legislature seeks to learn true toll from an epidemic Fatalities from prescription drugs are widely undercounted in Texas and in many other states, obscuring a growing overdose problem that is one of the nation's leading causes of preventable death. e Texas legislature is working on reforms to crack down on overprescribing and prescription drug dealing, which contribute to the toll. But without an accurate tally of drug deaths, lawmakers and health o cials in Texas have no way to know the true impact of the prescription drug epidemic - or where to target prevention and treatment programs that can save lives - even as they publicly declare such deaths have declined. Only 622 deaths reported across Texas in 2013 were speci cally blamed on opioids - mostly painkillers, based on death certi cate data cited by Lakey's department. But 798 prescription-drug related deaths were recorded by local medical examiners that year in just 17 of the state's 254 counties, the Chronicle and Statesman found. e newspapers found that medical examiner reports in Harris, Travis, Dallas, Tarrant and El Paso counties, as well as some smaller counties, attribute many more deaths to prescription drug overdoses than the state has counted in opioid overdoses. Out the state's method of tracking the problem undercounts deaths in every major county across Texas, the newspapers found. Often, those deaths involve multiple medicines or prescription drugs mixed with alcohol or illegal substances. In 2013, the state report tallied 179 deaths from pain pills in Harris County; the medical examiner's o ce reported 275 deaths involving all prescription drugs that year. Six of those happened in one 48-hour period that November. In Travis County, which includes Austin, the state reported 17 deaths from prescription painkillers in its preliminary count of death certi cates for 2013, but the administrator of the county's Medical Examiner's O ce hand-counted 114 deaths involving all prescription drugs that year.
16
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker