'Mothers, Wives, Sisters And Daughters Are Dying At Rates We Have Never Seen Before'.....Drug Overdose Deaths From Prescription Painkillers Spike Among Middle-Aged Women

ATLANTA — Overdose deaths in the U.S. are rising fastest among middle-aged women, and their drug of choice is usually prescription painkillers, the government reported Tuesday.

"Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are dying at rates that we have never seen before," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which compiled the data.

The problem is one of the few health issues the CDC is working on that are clearly getting worse, he added.

For many decades, the overwhelming majority of U.S. overdose deaths were men killed by heroin or cocaine. But by 2010, 40 percent were women – most of them middle-aged women who took prescription painkillers.

Skyrocketing female overdose death rates are closely tied to a boom in the overall use of prescribed painkillers. The new report is the CDC's first to spotlight how the death trend has been more dramatic among women. READ More...