CEDAR RAPIDS – The United States Attorney’s Offices for the Northern and Southern Districts of Iowa together with the University of Iowa’s College of Public Health and Injury Prevention Research Center are hosting a collaborative interagency symposium on November 12th to discuss the skyrocketing rates of death occurring in Iowa from prescription medication and heroin overdoses.
For the 13-year period beginning in 2000, Iowans dying from prescription medication overdoses increased twenty-fold. Heroin overdose deaths experienced the same alarming rate of increase, jumping from one to 20 deaths per year.