PITTSBURGH (100.1 FM and AM 1020 KDKA) More than 100,000 people across America died from drug overdoses in 2021, and many of those victims were children.
Addiction and emergency medicine specialist Dr. Tom Brophy says fentanyl a huge reason for the extremely high number.
Fentanyl has become a game changer because it's created in labs and in-expensive.
“Fentanyl is everywhere,” Dr. Brophy said on the Big K Morning Show. “And it’s dirt cheap.”
While on the Big K Morning Show, Dr.Brophy explained that because fentanyl can be snorted, it ends up in the bodies of children.
“It gets into everything. If you’re leaving it out on the coffee table there’s going to be residue.”
Stories of infants and babies dying from fentanyl toxicity happen close to home as a mother and father were recently charged with the death of their three-month-old.
The infant girl was determined to have died from fentanyl toxicity earlier in August.
Dr. Brophy says even though substance abuse and overdoses are on the rise, the number of people seeking treatment is going down.