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CDC: Illegal Fentanyl Killed 1,013

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The Associated Press

Published: July 25, 2008

ATLANTA - More than 1,000 people died over two years from an illegal version of the painkiller fentanyl, the government reported Thursday in its first national tally of those deaths.

The spike of overdoses seems to have ended, health officials said, pointing to law enforcement's shutdown of a fentanyl operation in Mexico in 2006.

The wave of fentanyl overdoses first came to light in Chicago in 2005, and by 2006 more clusters were identified in Philadelphia, Detroit and other cities.

Hundreds of deaths from the drug were gradually reported, often episodically in local newspapers. Thursday's report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the toll at 1,013 deaths from early April 2005 through late March 2007.

"This was really an epidemic," said Steven Marcus, the executive director of New Jersey's poison control center and a co-author of the new report.

Some deaths from illegal fentanyl still occur, but the worst of the outbreak seems to have ended after authorities shut down a fentanyl-making operation in Toluca, Mexico, in May 2006, said T. Stephen Jones, the study's lead author.

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