Excess Deaths, Part 3
By Bruce Webber
Posted 2024-05-25 in excess deaths
As I've investigated non-COVID excess deaths (see Excess Deaths and Excess Deaths, Part 2), it's become clear that there are multiple causes for these deaths.
One cause is drug overdose. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in the United States, drug overdoses increased from approximately 71 thousand in 2019 to approximately 104 thousand in 2023. This is an increase of 33 thousand, accounting for 15% of the non-COVID excess deaths.
Drug Overdose Death Counts from the CDC National Center for Health Statistics
Many of these overdoses were from synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl. Fortunately, the number of overdose deaths decreased by 3% in 2023. Hopefully, this trend continues.
Since writing the above, I looked at data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. I discuss this in a fourth article.