Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Death Certificates' Lack Of Specificity Hampers Efforts To Curb Opioid Crisis
When a patient overdoses with multiple drugs in his or her system, it's often lumped together on the death certificate as "multiple drug toxicity." But knowing drug types could help public health officials figure out which is causing the most deaths.
As the opioid epidemic surges, Alabama鈥檚 toxicologists are testing more blood samples from overdose victims to determine what drugs were in their bodies. But the results of those costly and time-consuming tests are not always ending up on death certificates. More often than not, when overdose victims are found to have multiple drugs in their bodies, coroners simply write 鈥渕ultiple drug toxicity鈥 or 鈥渄rug overdose鈥 on the death certificate, says Alabama鈥檚 forensic science chief Michael Sparks. (Vestal, 8/19)
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