How Fentanyl Testing Saves Lives

According to the CDC, Fentanyl is a major contributor to fatal and nonfatal overdoses in the U.S. 
The dangers of fentanyl are realized across the country with over 150 people dying every day from overdoses related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that has been linked to a rising number of overdose deaths in recent years. It is 50x stronger than heroin and 100x stronger than morphine. It is highly potent and can be deadly in small amounts, which is why it is essential to have an extensive fentanyl testing menu to ensure that any product or substance that may contain fentanyl can be accurately identified.

It is also important to call attention to the difference between Pharmaceutical fentanyl and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, with the latter being uncontrolled making it difficult to determine appropriate dosage to avoid unintentional overdose and other harms. The reason is that illicitly-manufactured fentanyl is unregulated, and of unknown composition and potency making it difficult to determine appropriate dosage to avoid unintentional overdose and other harms.

As we enter the spring of 2023, it's important to be aware of the top infectious diseases that we may encounter and take steps to stay healthy. 

Understanding the Pandemic’s Influence on the US Drug Epidemic from a Clinician’s Perspective 

When the COVID-19 Pandemic started in early 2020, the nation was nearly a decade into battling a rapidly growing Prescription Opioids Misuse Epidemic. Just three years prior, the crisis had been named a public health emergency, but that had done little to slow down the increase of opioid misuse and overdose deaths. 

With an increasing number of immunocompromised people with underlying diseases and treatments for other diseases like transplantation and cancer, fungal infections (mycosis), and diseases caused by fungus (yeast or mold) are increasing.

Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms, but can be serious for infants and older adults, resulting in an average of 60,000-160,000 hospitalizations and around 600-10,000 deaths per year in the US, with the highest death in people over 65. There is great news that on May 3, 2023, FDA approved the world’s first RSV vaccine for use in people aged 60 and older.

Sexually Transmitted Infections affect more than one million new people every day.

Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) is an infection of the genitourinary system transmitted through unprotected sexual contact infecting more than 1 million new people every day worldwide. While more than 30 different bacteria, viruses, and parasites are known to cause STIs, eight pathogens, including the causative agent of gonorrhea, Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacterium, are linked to the greatest incidence of STIs. The progressive development of drug resistance to many commonly used antibiotics to treat gonorrhea is highly concerning.

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections infecting any part of the urinary system from the urethra, bladder, and ureter, to the kidney. It affects more than 150 million people worldwide both in the community and hospital setting. In most of the complicated and chronic UTIs, biofilm - a community of bacterial cells sticking together, and attaching to the bladder wall, is involved. Unfortunately, many antimicrobial-resistant UTI pathogens like Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, etc. form biofilms.

Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) 

is one of the biggest public health threats of this era with nearly 50,000 deaths (mostly preventable) from Opioid overdoses only in the US in 2019. Recently, there is an increasing trend of prescription opioid use for the treatment of chronic, non-cancer pain, such as back pain or osteoarthritis, despite serious risks and the lack of evidence for effectiveness. Unfortunately, there were nearly five times higher overdose deaths involving prescription opioids in 2020 than in 1999. In 2020 alone, almost 24% of all US opioid overdose deaths involved a prescription opioid. Since 1999, more than 263,000 people have died in the US from prescription opioid overdoses. These trends warranted immediate actions from government agencies.

Substance Use Disorder (SUD)  

is a growing public health problem with an estimated 165 million people among 12 and older in the US using some sort of substances. Substance use is associated with the development of significant physiological dependence, especially when consistently consumed in large amounts, and develop withdrawal symptoms when trying to stop using them. Withdrawal symptom is a physiological response to the sudden quitting or slowing of the substance use to which the body has grown dependent resulting in the unpleasant experience of combinations of physical, mental, and emotional symptoms.