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An estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in one year, a never-before-seen milestone that health officials say is tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and a more dangerous drug supply. Overdose deaths have been rising for more than two decades, accelerated in the past two years and, according to new data posted Wednesday, jumped nearly 30% in the latest year. President Joe Biden called it “a tragic milestone” in a statement, as administration officials pressed Congress to devote billions of dollars more to address the problem. (Stobbe, 11/18)

Americans died of drug overdoses in record numbers as the pandemic spread across the country, federal researchers reported on Wednesday, the result of lost access to treatment, rising mental health problems and wider availability of dangerously potent street drugs. In the 12-month period that ended in April, more than 100,000 Americans died of overdoses, up almost 30 percent from the 78,000 deaths in the prior year, according to provisional figures from the National Center for Health Statistics. The figure marks the first time the number of overdose deaths in the United States has exceeded 100,000 a year, more than the toll of car crashes and gun fatalities combined. Overdose deaths have more than doubled since 2015. (Caryn Rabin, 11/17)

Illegal drugs are often made to look like prescription pills, available online and sold through social media, according to a US Drug Enforcement Administration warning in September. That same month the DEA announced more than 800 arrests and the seizure of more than 1.8 million pills as part of a two-month sweep. The agency noted fentanyl has been seized in every state and it issued an urgent warning in September about fake prescription pills laced with the drug. (Wolf, 11/18)

Seven women who say they suffered excruciating pain after a nurse stole fentanyl for her personal use and replaced it with saline sued Yale University on Wednesday, alleging it of failing to safeguard its supply of the painkilling opioid at a fertility clinic. The women say they underwent painful and invasive procedures for in vitro fertilization and were supposed to receive fentanyl at the Yale University Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility clinic in Orange, Connecticut, last year. Unbeknownst to them, they received saline instead of fentanyl, and when they told staff of their extreme pain during and after the procedures, their concerns were dismissed, according to the lawsuit filed in state court in Waterbury by the women and their spouses. (Collins, 11/17)