In 2016, opioids were involved in 42,249 deaths, five times higher than 1999. That figure is expected to exceed 60,000 in 2017, based on preliminary death data, according to research organization Altarum and CDC officials.
Francis Collins, MD, director of the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s chief medical research agency, talked with me for WebMD about the roots of this epidemic, promising research into both addiction and the treatment of pain, and President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for 2019. Here is an edited version of the conversation. See the Q & A.
