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If you want to know what it means for something to grow exponentially, consider the death toll of fentanyl. This powerful synthetic opioid seemingly came out of nowhere and is now killing tens of thousands of Americans each year. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details the meteoric rise of a drug that was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration back in 1968. It shows that fentanyl’s role as a driver of the opioid epidemic can be traced to late 2013. (Healy, 3/20)

The synthetic opioid fentanyl has been driving up the rate of fatal drug overdoses across racial and social lines in the United States, with the sharpest increase among African Americans, according to a new analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The death rate among African Americans from fentanyl-involved drug overdoses rose 141 percent each year, on average, from 2011 to 2016, the study showed, with a particularly dramatic spike starting in 2014. The death rate for Hispanics rose 118 percent in that period every year on average, and 61 percent for non-Hispanic whites. The CDC did not have reliable data on Asian Americans and Native Americans. (Achenbach, 3/21)

Increased trafficking of the drug and increased use are both fueling the spike in fentanyl deaths. For drug dealers, fentanyl is easier to produce than some other opioids. Unlike the poppies needed for heroin, which can be spoiled by weather or a bad harvest, fentanyl's ingredients are easily supplied; it's a synthetic combination of chemicals, often produced in China and packaged in Mexico, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. And because fentanyl can be 50 times more powerful than heroin, smaller amounts translate to bigger profits. (Bebinger, 3/21)

Medicines proven to treat opioid addiction remain vastly underused in the U.S., the nation's top medical advisers said Wednesday. Only a fraction of the estimated 2 million people addicted to opioids are getting the medications, according to a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The influential group, which advises the federal government, called for increased prescribing of the drugs and other changes to reduce barriers to their use. (3/20)

As the opioid crisis dawned in the U.S., continuing educational material that doctors are required to review may have contributed to the burgeoning problem, according to a newly published study. How so? The study compared a continuing medical education module, or course, that was funded by a drug maker that sold a fentanyl lollipop and lozenge with practice guidelines issued by a medical society. The scope of the two publications was not completely identical, but both focused on the use of opioids in treating non-cancer pain. And the study found the industry-funded course contained a “subtle bias.” (Silverman, 3/20)

Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand says she's "open to improving" a Senate bill that would limit opioid prescriptions for acute pain. The senator from New York was addressing criticism she received last week when she tweeted that she and Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado had introduced the bill "because no one needs a month's supply for a wisdom tooth extraction." (3/20)

One of the most popular and effective treatments used to fight the U.S. opioid epidemic is about to get much cheaper. Based in Hyderabad, a rambling boomtown in south India, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. is a major supplier of generic drugs used by Americans for everything from infections to cardiovascular ailments. After a two-year legal battle, the company has won the right to sell a cheaper version of Suboxone Film, the best-selling opioid addiction drug in the U.S. too. (Altstedter, 3/20)

So, as the UAW negotiates wages, health care, job security and other traditional issues this summer with Detroit automakers, it also has identified combating opioids as a key priority in the upcoming collective bargaining talks this year. Manufacturing employees are exposed to injury from standing for long periods of time, repetitive motion and heavy lifting, and they seek treatment, which in the past two decades has increasingly come in the form of prescription painkillers containing codeine, oxycodone (such as OxyContin) or hydrocodone (such as Vicodin). Those pills can quickly result in addiction, in time leading some people to seek cheaper, more accessible heroin. (Howard, 3/21)