Heath Ledger, celebrity overdoses and the danger of combining prescriptions

Published: February 12, 2008, 4:03 pm

Tags: diagnosis, health risks, health warnings, in the news, lifestyle, treatment, uncategorized, health, health news, antihistamine, barbituates, cdc, celebrity overdose, center for disease control, central nervous system, cns, cns depressants, combining prescriptions, danger, d

What do Heath Ledger, Elvis Presley, Anna Nicole Smith, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe have in common? They all died of accidental prescription drug overdoses. And those are just a few of the most famous cases. There are lots more cases involving lesser known stars, and, of course, most tragic are the thousands of average people who die each year due to accidental prescription drug overdoses. Exact numbers are hard to come by because of the difficulty in separating out prescription drug overdoses from those involving street drug overdoses (e.g., heroin, cocaine, etc), but one study found that deaths involving prescription opioid analgesics increased from roughly 2900 in 1999 to 7500 in 2004, a 160% increase. That study was done by Dr. Leonard Paulozzi of the Centers for Disease Control who stated that [B]y 2004, opioid painkiller deaths numbered more than the total of deaths involving heroin and cocaine. For the first time, it became apparent that prescribed controlled

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