We thank Sauer et al. for reaffirming the findings of our study. We also commend them for quantifying the relative contributions of the opioid epidemic to the recent declines in life expectancy in the United States. Our study was based on mortality data up to 2014. It is worth noting that the opioid epidemic has evolved drastically in the past four years, driven primarily by the marked increase in overdose fatalities involving fentanyl and analogs.
Although the results of Sauer and colleagues’ updated analysis seem rather grim and alarming, it is unwarranted to conclude that there is no “near-term end to the current upward trajectory of drug overdose mortality.” Thanks to intensified responses by federal, state, and local governments and communities, preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the opioid epidemic may have plateaued in 2017,1 as we predicted with Farr’s law of epidemics.2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (grant 1 R49 CE002096).
We thank Barbara H. Lang for her administrative and editorial assistance.
Note. The contents of this letter are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agency.
REFERENCES
- 1.Ahmad FB, Rossen LM, Spencer MR, Warner M, Sutton P. Provisional drug overdose death counts. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm. Accessed July 29, 2018.
- 2.Darakjy S, Brady JE, DiMaggio CJ, Li G. Applying Farr’s law to predict the drug overdose mortality epidemic in the United States. Inj Epidemiol. 2014;1(1):31. doi: 10.1186/s40621-014-0031-2. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]