Opioids kill more children and teens: Study

According to a new study, a huge number of children are dying from opioid poisonings. Nearly 9,000 pediatric deaths were attributed to opioids from 1999 through 2016, the study showed. During this period, mortality rate for youth due to opioid poisonings nearly tripled. Among the total number of deaths, 6567 were male and 7921 were adolescents ranging from 15-19 years of age. Nearly 7 percent of deaths were children ages zero to four, about four percent were 10-14 and about one percent were ages 5-9. Prescription opioids accounted for 73 percent of the deaths.