A report by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health examines the relationship between opioid overdose deaths and the work-related injury rates in the victims’ occupation and industry groups.
One of the more heartbreaking ripple effects of America’s opioid addiction epidemic is a massive increase in newborns experiencing drug withdrawal. Public health officials have tracked a 400 percent increase in such cases — technically known as neonatal abstinence syndrome — with one impacted baby born every 25 minutes as of 2012.
A reporter goes undercover to expose the conditions facing temp workers; West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin comes out against Trump’s MSHA pick; carpenters union confronts Industrial Commission of Arizona on leniency toward violators; and a Philadelphia union joins an opioid lawsuit against drug companies.
In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, nearly 200 people have died from opioid-related overdoses in the first five months of this year. That means that this one U.S. county is on pace to lose more than 700 people to fatal overdoses by the end of 2017.
By now, the enormity of America’s opioid abuse and overdose epidemic is common knowledge. With 78 Americans dying every day from an opioid overdose and with enough painkillers prescribed to give just about every U.S. adult their own bottle of pills, there’s hardly a community that’s gone untouched by the deadly problem. And a new study reminds us that we’ll be dealing with the aftermath far into the future.