Kids As Young As 1 Overdose On Parents' Opioids, Study Shows

America’s insidious opioid crisis is affecting children as young as 1 years old, according to a new study that showed the number of children admitted to hospitals after overdosing on medications containing the highly addictive drug nearly doubled over a decade ending in 2015.

The study, published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics, looked at opioid-related admissions to hospital and pediatric intensive care units among children 1-17 from 2004 to 2015. In three years from 2012 to 2015, the number of admissions for opioid overdoses increased to 1,504 patients, up from 797 from 2004 to 2007.

The study, which looked at records from 31 U.S. children’s hospitals, underscores the importance of keeping medications safely locked away from children. In many cases, the authors said, young children accidentally got into painkillers that had been prescribed to their parents. In others, drug-seeking teenagers who either wanted a recreational high or wanted to injure themselves found easy access.

"These admissions are entirely preventable," lead researcher Dr. Jason Kane, of the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, told CBS News. "These kids shouldn't be there."

Twenty percent of children under age 6 who overdosed on opioids accidentally ingested methadone, a drug prescribed for opioid withdrawal symptoms, the study’s lead author, Dr. Jason Kane, told CNN.

“So you sort of have to ask yourself: Where are they getting all this methadone from?” said Kane, an associate professor of pediatrics and critical care at Comer Children's Hospital in Chicago.

Kids had a variety of symptoms, ranging from acute respiratory distress that required the use of the ventilator, to dangerously low blood pressure. About 43 percent of them had to be admitted to pediatric intensive care units, which compared to 12 percent of all pediatric ICU admissions. About 2 percent of the patients died, according to the study.

OPIOIDS NOT THAT EFFECTIVE FOR CHRONIC PAIN

The study comes as America is in the grips of a deadly opioid crisis that in 2016 killed more than 42,000 Americans died, more than any year on record, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They resulted from overdoses on prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, and were among 64,000 drug overdose deaths that year — far more than the 58,200 Americans killed during the Vietnam War.

An estimated 2.4 million Americans struggle with an opioid use disorder, according to federal estimates.

Physicians are under pressure to wean themselves away from prescribing painkillers that contain opioids, which a yearlong study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found opioids aren’t all that effective to treat chronic pain. The study found that non-opioids like Tylenol, ibuprofen and prescription pills for nerve and muscle pain are just as effective as powerful opioids to treat stubborn back aches or hip or knee arthritis.

Physicians shouldn’t be so quick to prescribe opiates given “their really nasty side effects — death and addiction,” lead study author Dr. Erin Krebs, a physician and researcher with the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System, told The Associated Press.

Krebs said the result of the study will come as a surprise to many people “because opioids have this reputation as being really powerful painkillers, and that is not what we found.”

The first line of defense against chronic pain should be physical therapy, exercise or rehabilitation therapy, Krebs said. If that doesn’t work, a variety of nonopioid drugs are available.

The study involved 234 patients from Minneapolis-area VA clinics who were assigned to use generic versions of opioids or nonopioids for a year. Follow-up ended in 2016.

"This is a very important study," Dr. David Reuben, geriatrics chief at UCLA's medical school, told The AP. "It will likely change the approach to managing long-term back, hip and knee pain."

DOJ SUPPORTS SPRAWLING LAWSUIT

Both studies come as the Justice Department said it would support a federal lawsuit in Cleveland that consolidates complaints by more than 400 cities, counties and Native American tribes nationwide that accuses drug manufacturers, distributors and dispensers of these drugs of underplaying their addictiveness. They also are accused of failing to report suspicious prescriptions presented by consumers that would indicate the drugs are being accused

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last week that the Justice Department would file a statement of interest, a tactic that is typically used in cases that speak to U.S. interests, such a diplomacy or national security. Sessions says the opioid crisis has cost the federal government billions of taxpayer dollars spent on various health programs and law enforcement efforts

“Opioid abuse is driving the deadliest drug crisis in American history,” Sessions said in a statement. “It has cost this nation hundreds of thousands of precious lives. It has strained our public health and law enforcement resources and bankrupted countless families across this country. President Trump and this administration have made ending this unprecedented crisis a priority, and the Department of Justice is committed to using every lawful tool at our disposal to turn the tide. We will seek to hold accountable those whose illegality has cost us billions of taxpayer dollars.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Photo via Shutterstock