The number of U.S. kids who overdose on prescription painkillers each year may be declining -- but the incidents remain a major public health problem, new research says.
Since 2009, U.S. poison control centers have seen fewer calls about children and teenagers who've ingested prescription opioids, researchers found.
Often, those incidents involved young children who'd gotten hold of an adult's medication. In other cases, it was a teenager who intentionally abused the drug, or used it to self-harm.
The fact that the incidents may be waning is "good news," researchers said.
But, they stress, the issue is not going away.
"We really have a major problem in this country [with opioid abuse]," said Dr. Marcel Casavant, one of the researchers on the study. "And it's trickling down to our kids."
[For more of this story, written by Amy Norton, go to https://consumer.healthday.com...-opioids-720774.html]
Comments (0)