Latest / NO FILTER / _People will start dying again__ Health officials fear Trump_s cuts put opioid recovery at risk(MP3_160K)

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_People will start dying again__ Health officials fear Trump_s cuts put opioid recovery at risk(MP3_160K) · NO FILTER

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: New data from the CDC shows opioid overdose death dropped
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: by twenty seven percent last year. That's the largest one
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: year decline on record, but a growing number of health
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: experts worry all that progress now could be lost. NBC
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: News correspondent co host of News Now Daily, Morgan Radford
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  Speaker 1: joins us with more on that warning. You've been covering
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  Speaker 1: this crisis, Morgan for a long time. So what a
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  Speaker 1: health officials say? What are they worried about right now?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: The simple reason funding cuts. The Trump administration has proposed
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  Speaker 3: more than six billion dollars in funding cuts with the
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  Speaker 3: CDC and other agencies which deal directly with the opioid crisis.
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  Speaker 3: And it's not just researchers and doctors who were sounding
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  Speaker 3: the alarm. We went to a small town called Huntington,
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  Speaker 3: West Virginia, where we have been covering the opioid crisis
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  Speaker 3: for almost a decade now, to see what they had
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  Speaker 3: to say.
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  Speaker 4: That was me when I was saber.
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  Speaker 3: Actually, Rebecca Queen says she's been addicted to opioids for
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  Speaker 3: seventeen years.
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  Speaker 2: I probably use every three to five hours, but.
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  Speaker 3: Four months ago, yeah, here's the meaning that addiction almost
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  Speaker 3: cost her her life.
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  Speaker 2: They called it death dough. And this is how I'm saying.
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  Speaker 2: And the addiction is I sought it out.
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  Speaker 3: You sought out the death dough, death dough dope that
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  Speaker 3: would be so powerful it would bring you near death.
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  Speaker 2: Correct. I had died.
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  Speaker 4: Two narcans brought me back.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 3: Health officials here say that Narcan, a drug also known
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  Speaker 3: as the lock zone that works in minutes to reverse
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  Speaker 3: over doses, is in jeopardy. What if I told you
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  Speaker 3: that there are proposed government spending cuts that make it
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  Speaker 3: harder for you to get narcan.
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  Speaker 4: I think they're trying to kill us off more nuisance
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  Speaker 4: were like raccoons and pigeons.
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  Speaker 3: The Trump administration is looking to cut fifty six million
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  Speaker 3: dollars in annual grants that fund the lock zone distribution
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  Speaker 3: here in Huntington, West Virginia, which attorneys for the city
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  Speaker 3: have called ground zero for the opioid crisis.
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  Speaker 4: You can't even walk your kids down the road without
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  Speaker 4: probably stepping on a needle.
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  Speaker 3: Local health officials are taking drastic action.
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  Speaker 5: So this is one of the clausets that we keep
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  Speaker 5: the narcan.
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  Speaker 2: So you are stocking up on narcan right now.
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  Speaker 5: We are gathering as much as we can.
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  Speaker 2: In case those funding cuts come.
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  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Connie Pretty leads the Huntington Quick Response Team.
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  Speaker 2: Is the qRT headquarters.
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  Speaker 3: Yes ity is which deploys to overdose calls with specialists
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  Speaker 3: trained to save lives and to help guide people out
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  Speaker 3: of addiction.
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  Speaker 2: When is the last time someone has used Narcan to
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  Speaker 2: save you?
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  Speaker 5: What?
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  Speaker 2: I overdosed? About a year ago?
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  Speaker 3: Pretty met with First Lady Malania Trump to discuss the
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  Speaker 3: opioid crisis in twenty nineteen, three years after our team
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  Speaker 3: visited Huntington when the city was overwhelmed by overdoses.
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  Speaker 2: Now, what is the bleach for? To clean dirty needles?
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  Speaker 3: We went back in twenty twenty during a pandemic spike.
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  Speaker 3: This is a track mark, and now the city has
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  Speaker 3: finally managed to get overdose calls down by more than
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  Speaker 3: seventy percent from their peak.
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  Speaker 2: And there's a lot of people hear that a hard.
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  Speaker 3: Fought battle that Pretty fears they may have to fight again.
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  Speaker 3: The Trump administration is looking to cut more than six
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  Speaker 3: billion dollars to the CDC and other federal agencies that
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  Speaker 3: directly addressed the opioid crisis.
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  Speaker 5: We're a small community. The funding is just so important.
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  Speaker 5: I can't even tell you.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder how you wage a war on drugs without
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  Speaker 2: paying for it.
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  Speaker 5: You can't. You've just got to decide our lives important
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  Speaker 5: enough to save? Is the money more important than the
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  Speaker 5: good that you will do?
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  Speaker 2: Do you think voters understand that decision?
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  Speaker 5: I don't think so. Am I trying to stand here
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  Speaker 5: and say there's no government waste?
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  Speaker 2: Huh?
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  Speaker 5: But lives saving lives is not government waste.
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  Speaker 3: Cut that would affect people like Silly mackelfresh, who says
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  Speaker 3: Pretty's Team saved her life after years of addiction.
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  Speaker 4: I was on fantana for many years, died so many times,
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  Speaker 4: so many times. I sorry, but I try to go
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  Speaker 4: to treatment. Most people did not care about me that point.
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  Speaker 2: Did the Quick Response Team save you? Yes? Multiple with
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  Speaker 2: an our kid. Yes, now three years sober.
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  Speaker 3: She uses her experience as a certified peer counselor to
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  Speaker 3: help others escape addiction once and for all. What happens
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  Speaker 3: if funding goes away?
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  Speaker 2: People start dying again. People will start dying again.
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  Speaker 3: NBC News reached out to the White House for a comment,
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  Speaker 3: but officials did not respond by deadline. The President did
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  Speaker 3: sign an executive order in February aimed at disrupting the
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  Speaker 3: synthetic opioid supply chain from China.
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  Speaker 1: We saving lives is not government waste. That is a
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  Speaker 1: powerful line there we heard in the piece. So let's
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  Speaker 1: talk about fentanyl. Donald Trump, the President has talked about
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  Speaker 1: it a lot. Now doing something. What is it exactly?
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  Speaker 2: He's always talking about the supply side.
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  Speaker 3: He's always talking about stopping the influx of fentanyl from abroad.
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  Speaker 3: But when you talk to people who are doing the
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  Speaker 3: work where the boots meet the ground every single day,
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  Speaker 3: they said, look, the supply chain isn't the total issue.
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  Speaker 3: It may not even be the bulk of the issue.
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  Speaker 3: Because people like Connie said, we got the numbers down
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  Speaker 3: and fast in the last five years.
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  Speaker 2: We've seen this influx of pentanel.
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  Speaker 3: We still managed to get the numbers down, but we
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  Speaker 3: did that by focusing on demand. And the only way
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  Speaker 3: you can focus on demand is with those cuts excuse me,
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  Speaker 3: with those government programs that are funded by federal state dollars.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you.
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  Speaker 2: What you hear.
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  Speaker 1: There is a cry for help. We need this funding
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  Speaker 1: and we need it badly. Please don't stop the progress
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  Speaker 1: that we've started to make. Fascinating look at this NBC
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  Speaker 1: News correspondent co hosts of News Now Daily, Morgan Radford Morgan,
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  Speaker 1: thanks Quack to see you.