Drug overdose deaths in Philadelphia surged to 900 last year — nearly a 30 percent increase in a single year — as the nation continued to grapple with an epidemic of opioid use and abuse. [1]

California 4659

Ohio 3310

Pennsylvania 3264

Florida 3228

New York 2754

Texas 2588

Michigan 1980

Illinois 1835

Massachusetts 1724

North Carolina 1567

© CDC

Is epigenetics involved?

Again, these drug-induced fatalities are not being driven by illegal street drugs; the analysis found that the most commonly abused prescription drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

How pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are designed or tailored to work within the human organism, e.g., which enzyme systems and pathways they work on effectively, or which inadvertently are damaged. The genotoxicity levels within or reactions to pharmaceuticals' patented chemical molecules. How every human organism's biochemistry deals with or processes pharmaceutical medications and vaccines. The unfortunate belief that the human organism can handle as many prescription drugs and/or vaccines as doctors can prescribe or inject. No studies have been done on the cumulative effects of adults taking as many 3 to 6 difference pharmaceutical drugs a day or infants and toddlers being injected with up to 9 different vaccines at one time.

So who is to blame?

Iatrogenic Problems

The opioid addiction problem in the U.S. is growing dramatically and urban areas are having a hard time trying to cope with both sides of the issue. For a few days, all news talk radio KYW 1060 reported on those problems in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the fifth largest U.S. city [3], not very far from where I reside.According to Philly.com, statistics are frightening:A 30 percent increase in a single year!According to the City of Philadelphia Department of Public Health, data every year since 2004, with 358 deaths, have risen year-after-year until in 2016, 900 deaths! However, Philly is not an anomaly; opioid addiction/deaths are a national problem, as the CDC indicates. Nationally in 2015, opioids contributed to 52,404 deaths per the CDC's "Drug Overdose Death Chart" listing state-by-state [2].According to the CDC's "Drug Overdose Death Chart" for 2015, the ten highest number of opioid deaths occurred in the following states:The state with the lowest number of opioid deaths in 2015 was North Dakota with 61.Epigenetics is a medical term bandied around too loosely, in my opinion, while probably still searching for consensus agreement to hang a lot of guilt associations or "cause and effect" on to heretofore unknown origins or what really may actually turn out to be iatrogenic [doctor-caused].Biologically speaking, epigenetics refers to the changes in organisms caused by modification(s) of gene expression rather than alteration of the gene code (DNA/RNA) and genomes, which are the complete set of genetic material in each cell and/or organism. What is surfacing as the prime modifier of gene expression just happens to be man-made chemicals, toxins and pollution.Unfortunately, allopathic medicine and pharmacology are inextricably steeped in man-made chemicals called pharmaceuticals and vaccines since their non-natural, laboratory-made components can be patented, therefore guaranteeing a prolific revenue stream. Whereas, Nature's biological life-giving chemicals as found in non-GMO food, herbs, spices, and other botanicals are rebuked by Big Pharma and allopathic medicine as "quackery" and not as science-based medicine.To illustrate the point I'm making about pharmaceuticals and vaccines being equated with epigenetics, we only have to consider the number of deaths attributed to pharmaceutical drugs. Interestingly, the U.S. CDC released data of preventable deaths from prescription drugs for the year 2009, which happened to be 37,485! According to Mercola.com [9]:That information applied to the 2009 data revealed by CDC; it is now 2017!Though designed to produce a biochemically good effect, a bad effect or adverse reaction can occur depending upon several parameters, in my opinion:If those studies have been done and published in peer review journals, will someone please email them to me? However, since those studies categorically have not been done, nor will they be undertaken due to the implications to be found, e.g., correlation and causation, all pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines have to be considered and labeled as epigenetic factors.One clue to substantiate that comment can be found on vaccine package inserts wherein vaccine makers state the vaccine has not been tested for its ability to produce carcinogenicity, teratogenicity, or interfere with fertility/reproduction. Wouldn't such studies either prove or disprove epigenetics regarding vaccines?Incidentally, vaccines have been reported by the CDC's HRSA to have caused 1,209 deaths [5].According to the radio reports I've heard recently, blame is being placed squarely on the medical care system and doctors who prescribe pain pills. How interesting 'officials' and the media are willing to say that. Blame the doctors—yes!Many now are of the mindset that medical doctors play a key role in creating the opioid epidemic. Some are calling for limiting the number of pain pills dispensed in every prescription, which really is not a bad idea.Opioid addiction overdoses tax the City of Philadelphia's various resources, especially NARCAN Nasal Spray [4], which has increased in price. The cost is $150 for two-nasal spray doses, and every police officer in Philadelphia carries a supply. But it works!Philadelphia Councilperson-at-Large David Oh has introduced the concept of a regional task force with the surrounding five counties to strategize how to deal with the ever-growing opioid problem.The opioid problem definitely can be called doctor-induced or "iatrogenic" [5]. There are numerous other iatrogenic health problems: surgery gone wrong; improper medication; negligence and others yet to be recognized and/or identified, in my opinion. I think the antibiotics problem can be called an iatrogenic issue. After all, who hands out antibiotics almost like they are candy?And then we have the iatrogenic elephant-in-the-room no one wants to hear, let alone own up to: vaccine-induced damage from vaccines [6], especially Hepatitis B given at birth; MMR vaccine causing autism in young black boys less than three years of age; the HPV vaccine [7] ruining young girls and boys lives, even causing deaths, as do some other vaccines.Vaccine damage must be classified as an iatrogenic problem because no one but the medical profession can administer vaccines! No one but the medical profession dutifully denies they do not cause harm when the HRSA division of the HHS has paid out almost $3.6 BILLION [8] in damages to vaccinees and/or lawyers regarding adverse reactions or deaths from vaccines as adjudicated by the Masters at the vaccine court, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.That FACT stated above proves vaccines are not safe; are iatrogenic causes of children's ever-growing health problems; and need to be reclassified as one of the causes of doctor-induced illnesses.Why do I say that? Thousands, if not millions of parents, tell the same horror stories of how their toddlers were perfectly healthy children until they received six or nine shots at a 'well baby' doctor's visit and never have been the same since. Who knows their children better than parents? Doctors don't! They just pontificate dogma that has to be adhered to or else get 'fired' from their healthcare practice if parents question a doctor's vaccine religious beliefs.The demographics for the opioid epidemic follow a similar trajectory statistically as autism has taken and been escalating since the late 1980s, when vaccines took off like greased lightning. Back in the 1970s, autism was one in 10,000-15,000; since mandatory vaccine schedules have escalated, we now are facing one in 68, or one in 45, depending whose statistics you want to believe or accept!Modern medicine may not be what it pontificates. It causes more harm in some instances than it cures. "Houston, we have a problem."References:[1] http://www.philly.com/philly/health/addiction/Fatal-overdoses-in-Phila-surged-in-2016-task-force-launched.html [2] https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_United_States_by_population_by_decade [4] https://www.narcan.com/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenesis 6] https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/data/statisticsreport.pdf , Pg. 5[7] http://sanevax.org/ [8] https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/data/statisticsreport.pdf , Pg. 9[9] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/26/prescription-drugs-number-one-cause-preventable-death-in-us.aspx