Opioid overdoses kill more Americans than guns, breast cancer

Overdoses killed young and middle-aged Americans at a breakneck pace as the country battles a crippling opioid crisis, adding to the first two-year drop in life expectancy since JFK was President.

More than 63,600 people died of a drug overdose in 2016, the National Center for Health Statistics found. The startling rate was 21% higher than the number of fatalities a year earlier.

Roughly two thirds, more than 42,000, were caused by opioids such as including heroin, prescription painkillers and the extremely potent fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention subsidiary.

By comparison, opioids killed more people in 2016 than the 37,400 killed in car accidents, 38,000 by guns or more than 40,000 from breast cancer.

RELATED: A look at the opioid and drug crisis in America

The findings irked advocates like Gary Mandell, founder and CEO of the Shatterproof advocacy group and who lost a son to drug addiction.

"I know from my own painful experience that behind every death there are countless family members and loved ones whose lives are forever shattered," he said in a statement Thursday. "This data only increases the urgent need for real federal and state action that will save lives."

West Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania were among the worst states for overdose deaths along with Washington, D.C. In total, 22 states and the district had overdose death rates higher than the national average of 19.8 fatalities per 100,000 people.

Synthetic opioids like fentanyl - but not including methadone - are increasingly deadly, the new numbers show. Since 2013, the substances have killed an average 88% more people each year, the center found. Heroin overdoses claimed more than 15,000 lives in 2016, compared with nearly 13,000 a year earlier.

And the drugs have claimed both men and women from ages 25 to 54 at an alarming rate.

President Trump earlier this year declared the crisis a public health emergency earlier this year, but advocates have said the government hasn't presented solutions on the crisis.

"The public health emergency declaration means nothing unless it is coupled with specific responsibilities, deadlines, and action plans," Mandell continued.

"This preventable loss of life proves that we cannot wait while the government drags its feet, so we are using a business-like approach to take decisive action."

He noted 16 health insurers last month committed to a set of standards last month to better address treating addiction. And Shatterproof developed a task force to design a roadmap for better treatment access, he added.

States and municipalities over the last year have either leveled or mulled lawsuits against some of the biggest drug manufacturers in the country.

Many of the cases have blamed the companies for sparking the opioid crisis by pushing prescription painkillers that forced patients to become addicted, eventually seeking more dangerous substances.

On Wednesday, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas added two more drugmakers - Insys Therapeutics and Mallinckrodt - to a lawsuit it filed against five other companies and three distributors in September.

Yet drug overdoses aren't the only things threatening the ability to live long and prosper. A second report issued Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics found a baby born in 2016 would live to be an average 78.6 years. That's a month shorter than people born a year earlier and two months fewer than those born in 2014.

Robert Anderson, the center's head of mortality statistics, told USA Today the "disturbing" rates are the first two-year drop since a flu outbreak killed a rash of people from 1962 to 1963.

Heart disease and cancer remained the overwhelmingly leading causes of death, although they saw small decreases. Unintentional injuries, Alzheimer's disease and suicide all saw increases.