Event

U.S. opioid overdose epidemic

Rise in U.S. deaths from prescription, heroin and synthetic opioids since the late 1990s.

3 links, 2 backed by primary records

How each side tells it

Connections 3

Purdue Pharma named by the Supreme Court as at the center of these events According to U.S. Supreme Court Primary record 1
United States government counts the deaths through the CDC; provisional 2024 count: 80,391 from all drugs, 54,743 involving opioids Primary record 2 3

Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics According to A 1980 Letter on the Risk of Opioid Addiction Scholarship & press 4
The 2017 analysis blames the way the letter was cited, not the letter, and says its authors "believe" the pattern "contributed". It does not claim to have proven a cause.

Timeline 1 date

Proof 4 sources

Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., No. 23-124 (slip opinion), Supreme Court of the United States, 27 Jun 2024. Primary record
Purdue sits at the center of these events.
U.S. Overdose Deaths Decrease Almost 27% in 2024, CDC National Center for Health Statistics, 14 May 2025. Primary record
Provisional data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics indicate there were an estimated 80,391 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2024—a decrease of 26.9% from the 110,037 deaths estimated in 2023.
The new data show overdose deaths involving opioids decreased from an estimated 83,140 in 2023 to 54,743 in 2024.
Understanding the Opioid Overdose Epidemic, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 Nov 2024. Primary record Archived copy
From 1999-2022, nearly 727,000 people died from an opioid overdose. This includes overdose deaths involving prescription and illegal opioids.
A 1980 Letter on the Risk of Opioid Addiction, New England Journal of Medicine, 1 Jun 2017. Scholarship & press Archived copy
We believe that this citation pattern contributed to the North American opioid crisis by helping to shape a narrative that allayed prescribers’ concerns about the risk of addiction associated with long-term opioid therapy.
was widely invoked in support of this claim, even though no evidence was provided by the correspondents

Page history 1 change