SUGAR GROVE, Ill. (AP) - U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams says local efforts to decrease overdose deaths due to the opioid crisis are making a difference.
Speaking Wednesday at Waubonsee Community College outside Chicago, Adams emphasized the importance of naloxone. That is an overdose reversal agent that revives people who have stopped breathing because of opioids.
Adams says although naloxone doesn’t end addiction and is not a long-term treatment, it is a vital first step. He encouraged everyone in the audience to get a dose of naloxone. With opioid addiction affecting 2.1 million people nationwide, he said anyone could witness an overdose
The anesthesiologist and former Indiana State Health Commissioner said public safety, health, justice, drug enforcement, treatment and policy officials should continue working together to fix the gaps that lead some users to relapse, prison or death.
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