Saving Lives with 3D Printing

摘要

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, more than two million people in the United States struggled with an opioid use disorder in 2016. Rates of opioid overdose deaths rapidly increased to over 70,000 in 2017. Opioids are a class of drugs that include prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. If taken differently than prescribed, opioids can cause death by slowing, and eventually stopping, a person's breathing. In response to this nationwide epidemic, Vice Adm. Jerome Adams, USPHS, the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, issued an Advisory on Naloxone and Opioid Overdose in April 2018 urging more Americans to carry naloxone, a lifesaving medication that can immediately, but temporarily, reverse the effects of an opioid overdose-namely the dire risk of slowed or stopped breathing.