system. >> Reporting from Madison.
I'm Zach Schultz for "Here& Now".
>> In western Wisconsin, a spike in drug overdoses led
the city of La Crosse to issue a safety alert in
recent days. What's going on? When overdoses were
trending down, we asked Doctor Chris Eberlein,
emergency medicine Health System. And, doctor,
thanks for being here. >> Yeah. You're welcome.
Thanks for having me. >> So what are the overdose
numbers that led to this safety alert?
>> So it's more of a trend. So we've been watching
overdose numbers really closely ever since.
Probably early pandemic time, but only in the last
several years have we really coordinated with EMS,
both first responders, including fire transport
agencies, some other members of the county,
Vivek health, some others that respond to overdoses,
and starting to pool data and sharing what we're
seeing in the community. So we had noticed, and
thankfully so last year we had great numbers. You know,
we're still way too high, but it was like a 60%
improvement year over year and overdose deaths and
responses. So really a great trend. And we're
seeing that at the beginning of this year as
well. And we would still go on about 1 to 2 overdose
calls a week is what kind of the trend was.
Throughout most of year we get small spikes and we and
we meet once a week and we discuss the data and we
were just watching it. We had a few that were like 3
or 4 in a week, but didn't really meet our threshold
to make any sort of announcement or, or change
our response. And then over this course of the last
couple of weeks, in late July, we were getting over
over ten responses in a week. And so, you know,
you're talking you know, that's a five fold increase
from what we were used to. And so that really made us
take pause. And then it happened again in the next
week as well. So so this is why we we figured we'd
better get some word out, figure out what we could do
as a community to see if there's anything we're
missing, and hopefully prevent some people from
having a bad outcome. >> Because you've said that
you get concerned when overdose cases begin to
increase in quick succession like that.
>> Yes. >> And that's just a marker
for something going on. >> Yeah. And usually it is
a change in supply change in use pattern. And so
we're really looking at trying to figure out what
that is. We did figure out what this one was. And it
was actually a change in the supply of not opiates.
Actually what we are seeing is that fentanyl was
intermixed with other stimulants, primarily
cocaine and methamphetamine. So these users had no idea
that they were at risk of an opioid overdose.
>> So do these synthetic opioids combined with other
drugs like those of which you speak, render Narcan
less effective? >> They would not. Narcan
would still be very effective for these, and
still a critical component in in our response.
>> And so is it known where these drugs are coming from?
Or is this just kind of the beginning of an
investigation to understand the scope of this?
>> Yeah. And unfortunately, we usually at our level
don't don't ever get that information of where these
are coming from. You know, that's more of a law
enforcement historically. You know, being in La
Crosse, we're between two major metropolitan areas as
far as Chicago and Minneapolis. And so they
come from one of those two areas, usually, at least
that's what I've been told by law enforcement.
>> So what is your message to people, drug users who
might who might be using these substances? And then
suddenly there's fentanyl mixed in. What is your
message? >> So there's a few things
to be aware of. One, any illegal drug could have
fentanyl in it. You know, it's something that is
relatively cheap to produce. Gets here in large
with other drugs. So I would assume that any drug
that you use could have fentanyl in it. Use
fentanyl test strips to test for fentanyl in the
drugs. Those are legal and widely available and then
never use alone. Always have someone there that
could call 911 and preferably give Narcan as
well as call 911, but you have to have Narcan
available, test your drugs and have a sober bystander
nearby that could enact help if you need it.
>> How hard is it for you to see this spike and treat
people experiencing it, or to lose someone to it?
>> I mean, it's always difficult. You know, this
is something we've been dealing with for years now.
You know, the country has lost hundreds of thousands
of people to the opioid epidemic. I think it's
touched just about every family at some point over
these last, you know, 15 years or so since it
started, no community has gone without impact. And so
when you see the spikes like this, you really want
to try and get, because sometimes I feel that we
can get a little bit complacent, especially when
things are going well. And that was one of my concerns
with this. You know, the the overdoses have gone
down. I just want to make sure, as you know, our
whole team wanted to make sure that everyone was
aware that it is still dangerous. And ideally, you
know, we could get them to stop and get help. But this
is the first step. You have to be alive to be able to
do that. And this is the do that. And this is the