Trifecta of opioids, alcohol and suicide are blamed for the drop in US life expectancy
by Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
Feb 08, 2018
4 minutes
An epidemic of despair is disproportionately claiming the lives of rural white Americans in the prime of adulthood. And for a second year in a row, their deaths by drugs, drink and self-destruction have caused life expectancy in the United States to fall.
That milestone, suggests an editorial in a respected medical journal, marks a sustained reversal of close to a century of improving health for Americans. And it raises a puzzling mystery: What is causing the despair, and what will restore hope and health to these battered Americans?
The opioid epidemic, which claimed the lives of
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