MedPage Today (8/26, Gever) reports that even though “absolute numbers of fatal benzodiazepine-involved overdoses remained small (less than 3,000 in 2020)…the percentage increase from April to June 2019 to the same period in 2020 was not: 42.9%.” In addition, “total overdoses treated in emergency departments (EDs) with benzodiazepines detected also increased sharply.” In fact, “the proportion of all ED visits involving such cases rose 23.7% in 2020 over the previous year, and for those also involving opioids, it increased 34.4%,” CDC researchers concluded. The findings were published Aug. 26 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
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