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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Whether it's an overdose of pain medications or being overcome by toxic fumes, Utah residents die at twice the national rate from poisonings, according to new state figures.
The Utah Department of Health reports 21.3 deaths from poisoning each year per 100,000 residents. The national average is 11 per 100,000 people, the department said.
Many of those Utah deaths are linked to prescription drug overdoses, thought it's often difficult to tell whether the overdoses were intentional, according to health officials.
Between 1999 and 2007, the number of deaths attributed to prescription pain medications rose more than 500 percent, according to the health department.
"There are a lot of people working on this issue to figure out why," said Jenny Johnson, who works with the state's violence and injury prevention program, which released the latest figures.
Many of Utah's poison deaths go relatively unnoticed, but the state has had several high profile cases in recent weeks.
Those include the deaths of a 4-year-old girl and her 15-month-old sister in Layton who fell ill, possibly after inhaling fumes that seeped into their home from rodent-killing pellets placed in their yard.
Last month, a 30-year-old Saratoga Springs man died after reporting he'd been exposed to a hazardous substance at his job.
The most common exposures reported at the Utah Poison Control Center are analgesics, household cleaning products and cosmetics and personal care products.
For the first time, pesticides are also now on the center's top 10 list.
"They've crept up. Now they're number 7," said Marty Malheiro, an outreach coordinator at the poison center, which fielded more than 56,000 calls last year.
But in recent years, much of focus has been on the state's steady increase of drug deaths, which make up the largest single category of cases -- roughly 20 to 25 percent -- at the state medical examiner's office.
Fatal overdoses from prescription drugs happen at nearly three times the rate of those from illicit drugs, according to Dr. Todd Grey, the state's chief medical examiner.
There are likely several factors at work, health officials said, including an increase in the number of prescriptions, including narcotics. While new and better medicines have benefits for many patients, there is an increased risk of those same drugs being abused, said Dr. Robert Rolfs, the state epidemiologist.
The latest U.S. Health and Human Services survey ranked Utah fourth in the nation for non-medical use of pain relievers.
Other reasons include misuse of medications and abuse by those stealing them from medicine cabinets.
State officials say they've also seen more drug deaths where it's unclear whether people intended to kill themselves.
Utah lawmakers this year are considering several bills to address the problem, including one that would notify doctors of a patient's DUI conviction if it was caused by prescription medication and another requiring any physician licensed to prescribe medicine to register with a controlled substance database and learn how to use it.
Health officials have also launched public awareness campaigns about prescription drug use.
"It's a solvable problem but it's complex," Rolfs said.
Overall, the Salt Lake County area has the highest rates of poisoning deaths in the state. Summit County had the lowest.
Those between the ages of 45 and 54 were the most likely to die of poisoning, according to state officials.
They said poisoning deaths among children have dropped in recent years, mostly because of safer packaging and poison control hot lines.
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(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
