INDIANAPOLIS -- As Indiana continues to fight the battle against opioid abuse new numbers now show that the struggle is affecting more kids than ever before.
The journal “Pediatrics” found the number of children between the ages of 1 and 17 that were hospitalized for ingesting opioids has nearly doubled across the country to 1,504 between 2012 and 2015.
In children under the age of six, methadone accounted for 20 percent of opioid ingestion.
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Researchers say many of those children likely overdosed on painkillers that were prescribed to their parents or other family members.
The study comes as opioid use among adults continues to be a severe epidemic across the country. According to the CDC, more than 42,000 people died in the US from opioid overdose in 2016, more than any year on record.
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