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Look at the Bright Side

The opioid drug epidemic in the U.S. isn’t all bad, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the year 2000, only 1 percent of organ donors died from a drug overdose. But by 2016, the opioid crises was so bad, almost 14 percent of organ donors died from overdoses. “This shift accounted for much of the increase in organ transplantation activity over the past five years in the United States,” the researchers say. Such overdoses don’t necessarily ruin the organs, say the researchers, since by the time they’re declared brain dead their bodies have “metabolized and excreted” the drugs. In 2016, about 42,000 people died from opiate overdoses, leading to a surge in transplants. But the number is still not catching up to need. “Although the number of patients on the waiting list has more than doubled since 1998, the supply of transplants has increased by only approximately 30 percent,” said another researcher in the same journal. (RC/NBC) ...“We’re proud of what we’ve done to help save lives.” —Purdue Pharma.