Trump Administration Reportedly Eliminates Opioid 'Emergency' By Dropping Designation
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services discovered one way to temporarily eliminate the nation’s opioid addiction and overdose crisis: forget to designate it as an “emergency.”
According to Politico, HHS apparently forgot to renew the emergency designation that President Donald Trump first ordered in 2017. The designation was gone for nine days beginning last week, but now the opioid epidemic is reportedly back on as an official emergency.
“This was a clerical error,” an HHS representative told Politico. “The public health emergency for opioids has been renewed.
During his first year in office, Trump ordered HHS to designate the opioid epidemic as a public health emergency in order to direct more resources to tackle the problem.
More than 400,000 people died from opioid overdoses from 1999 to 2017. On average, 130 Americans a day die of opioid overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, filed for bankruptcy protection last year as part of a tentative settlement with state and city governments. The proposed deal would involve paying some $12 billion to the plaintiffs and donating overdose and addiction recovery drugs to settle some 2,600 lawsuits.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
