Israel: Tough on COVID, soft on fentanyl
Israel is facing a severe public health crisis as the country becomes the world’s largest consumer of opioids per capita, with fentanyl topping the list according to a report by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel.
Fentanyl, which is 50 times more powerful than heroin and highly addictive, has been found to be responsible for most overdoses in the United States, of which there were 80,000 in 2022 alone. Israel has not yet reached that number, but the country also performs less autopsies due to religious reasons, which may confound the numbers.
According to a study published in March, between 2015 and 2021 there was an 85% increase in opioid obtainment in Israel, while fentanyl obtainment increased by 162%. Instead of being procured on the black market, the drugs are prescribed by Israeli physicians who accept pharmaceutical marketing without properly researching the product.
“As in other countries, drug companies began to heavily market opioids (also called opiates) in Israel, and many physicians were quick to see them as a magic bullet for treating pain without knowing enough about the potential for abuse, dependency and addiction,” reports Times of Israel.
Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, who heads Ben-Gurion University’s School of Public Health and co-authored the Taub Center report, takes a dim view of pharmaceutical companies’ assurances that their drugs are safe.
“Drug manufacturers invest tremendous resources in marketing pain medications, while convincing professionals that they are safe, that their side effects are minimal or exaggerated, and that addiction is the fault of the patient,” says Davidovitch in the report.
Nevertheless, Israel’s health apparatus has placed a considerable amount of faith in pharmaceutical corporations, as evidenced by the country’s decision to volunteer for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine without any prior data or even liability guarantees. Davidovitch himself, who served on the Health Ministry’s Coronavirus Advisory Committee, was concerned that not enough children would be injected with Pfizer’s experimental shots.
By 2020 Israel had already become the world’s largest consumer of opioids per capita. Its Health Ministry was aware of the astronomical increase in opioid consumption but failed to act. Instead, the government dedicated significant resources to implementing COVID mandates such as vaccines and lockdowns, which drastically increased psychiatric cases and sparked a mental health epidemic that has not yet subsided.
Davidovitch recommends several ways to curb the opioid crisis, including implementing safer prescription practices, updating patients and their families, increasing autopsies, and designing smarter treatment systems.
