LOS ANGELES (KNX) - A new study by Yale School of Medicine found that more babies and toddlers are dying from fentanyl overdoses.
Pediatric deaths from fentanyl increased over 30 times between 2013 and 2021, according to Dr. Julie Gaither, the study’s author.
“If you look at in 2019 for the pediatric population as a whole, there were 508 deaths from fentanyl,” she told KNX News. “But in 2020 that jumped up to 1,251 and then by 2021 there were almost 1,600 deaths.”
Dr. Gaither, also an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine, noted that one of the big issues is that parents leave the drug around their toddlers.
“They pick things up off the floor, they put it in their mouth,” she said. “They see something on the counter, they put it in their mouth…This is a drug that is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin, so it takes a minuscule amount to kill a child.”
Dr. Angelique Campen, who the Providence St. Joseph Emergency Room in Burbank, encourages people to pick up Narcan at their local pharmacies. Narcan is used to rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
“You do not need a prescription,” she said. “Anyone can buy it.”
In March, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the over-the-counter Narcan nasal spray.
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