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Opioids Fight: New federalfunding levels may not be high enough

Federal officials plan to spend $4.6 billion to battle the opioid addiction crisis this year. That represents a substantial new emphasis on dealing with a very real crisis.

But is it enough?

Drug abuse is killing about 42,000 people a year in the United States. West Virginia and Ohio are among the hardest-hit states.

Yet much more federal money is spent on other health concerns. For example, the Kaiser Family Foundation has found the government spends about $7 billion a year to combat AIDS. Advances in health care for AIDS patients have lowered the death rate greatly.

AIDS remains a killer, of course. Federal funding to lessen the toll from that scourge and others is important. Surely, though, the folks in D.C. have noticed the increase in AIDS and other diseases, like hepatitis-C, occurring at a frightening rate because of the opioid epidemic.

“Hepatitis C is a deadly, common, and often invisible result of America’s opioid crisis,” said Jonathan Mermin, M.D., M.P.H., director of Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, in a news release that also noted regional trends in four Appalachian states.

Given the terrible toll being taken by substance abuse, should Washington re-examine its priorities?

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