DEA seeks more accurate drug-death numbers
http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/dea-seeks-more-accurate-drug-death-numbers
Reading, PA
Four months after two widely distributed reports gave vastly different numbers for deaths caused by drug overdoses in Pennsylvania, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration said it has teamed with an academic agency to take drug death reporting and analysis to a new and more sophisticated level.
The DEA’s Philadelphia field office said it would collaborate with the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy’s Pennsylvania Heroin Overdose Prevention Technical Assistance Center on getting timely and accurate drug death data from Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.”They have an ability to analyze that is far superior to anything we can do,” Patrick Trainor, a DEA spokesman, said Wednesday. “And it is from a public health perspective.”
In July, the Reading Eagle reported that glaring differences existed in reports issued by the DEA and the Pennsylvania State Coroners Association on drug deaths in 2014.For instance, one report said there were 82 deaths in Chester County that year, while the other said there were 36.At the time, Berks County Coroner Dennis J. Hess said the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs had changed numbers given to it by coroners. DDAP, in turn, served as a resource for the DEA report.A DDAP spokesman subsequently said any assertion it gave out information significantly different from what it collected was false.A DEA spokeswoman said a spreadsheet from DDAP used in the 2014 report was understood to be incomplete, and the DEA later revised figures in its 2014 report.The DEA’s announcement of its new partnership did not mention DDAP.Trainor could not say whether the state agency was involved. A DDAP spokeswoman Wednesday did not immediately answer questions about whether it was involved.The death counts contained in reports from the DEA and coroners association are widely reported by the media and cited by state lawmakers.On Wednesday, Hess welcomed the involvement of the university.”The more people we talk about it with the better,” he said.The center at the university gets grant funding from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. It manages OverdoseFreePA, a project partnership between communities and organizations to work on the overdose problem.Trainor said he expected the DEA’s next statewide overdose report to be a joint effort of the federal agency and the university-managed partnership.Contact Ford Turner: 610-371-5037 or fturner@readingeagle.com.
Filed under: General Problems
In the processing of everything, the chronic triggering of PTSD, [which many of us have], will send most into a spiral that almost nothing will help. Feeling, and being powerless, w/o real knowledge and support has resulted in unleashed paranoia, in which ANY sleep and relaxing thought is possible.
This is what I’ve been saying all along.mcheck the deaths ! The drug an alcohol center send the state deaths from OD and what their main drug they used is. Really why do they do this FUNDING for the treatment centers they get more money with what they tell you and the states.
Check everything they tell you big false reporting sounds good make them back it up.
Better reporting will help show that the problem is with street drugs instead of prescription opiate medication. It may also show if people are not taking the med properly such combining opiates with opiate. If you rarely drink even a small amount of alcohol with opiates could ca use death. This also show that educats on is the key to help those who need these medication to any type of life.