Most of our U.S. emergency rooms are witnessing an increasingly large number of fatal overdoses due to prescription opioids like Vicodin and OxyContin. These outnumber overdoses of cocaine and heroin combined, according to a recent blog post. Thomas Frieden, CDC Director, says we have an epidemic of opioid overdoses in the U.S. Last year alone we averaged nearly 40 deaths a day, which totaled 15,000 deaths from prescription overdoses.

Frieden believes the majority of blame should lie with the few U.S. physicians that prescribe these types of painkillers too loosely, either from greed or out of a lack of knowledge. One CDC report found that 3 percent of doctors were responsible for over 60 percent of opioid prescriptions in California alone related to workers’ compensation beneficiaries. 48 states have already passed legislation to set up prescription drug management programs with the only two hold outs: Missouri and New Hampshire. Already in Oklahoma when an opioid has been prescribed, it is entered in the system within minutes under the recipient’s name.

Science Daily posted a release that examined the findings by Dr. Gideon Koren, who investigated the death of a two year old boy after an operation was performed to remove his tonsils. The procedure proved to be without incident and is a standard practice.

In this particular case, the young boy had a history of snoring and sleep-study-confirmed apnea. After his outpatient procedure, his mother was given codeine syrup and instructed on dosage. The second night after surgery, the child developed a fever and wheezing and was found dead the next morning.

While tests showed the mother had given the right dosage, the body had high levels of morphine. This particular child was found to have the ultra-rapid metabolism genotype, which causes the body to metabolize codeine at a faster rate to produce significantly higher amounts of morphine.

It is estimated that just over one percent of Caucasians carry this gene. For those of African origin, the incidence can be as high as 30 percent. If this is not identified before codeine is prescribed, thus taking the medication could be fatal.

“If the apnea doesn’t go away, codeine will also suppress the child’s breathing,” said Koren. “This demonstrates the need to keep children in hospital under surveillance for at least 24 hours to see if the apnea persists.”