Father of UVa grad who OD’d will be a special guest at Obama address
The father of a University of Virginia graduate who died of an opioid overdose will be at President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address Tuesday night.
Don Flattery, whose son Kevin overdosed on the painkiller OxyContin in 2014, will be the guest of Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, of Virginia, at Tuesday’s address. Kaine and Flattery are both hoping Obama will touch on the problem of opioid addiction during the speech.
“Don is such a powerful advocate because his story shows us that the epidemic of drug addiction goes beyond shocking statistics,” Kaine said in an email Monday. “It’s impacting families from all walks of life and robbing us of young people like Kevin who have incredible potential.”
Kevin Flattery was one of about 29,000 people who died from opioid overdoses in 2014, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a number which has quadrupled since 2000. The term “opioid” includes both substances naturally derived from opium poppy (including heroin) and synthetic substances such as fentanyl, oxycodone and hydrocodone.
Prescription opioids are very addictive, and the dramatic increase in the number of prescriptions is helping to drive the increase in overdose deaths.
Flattery said it’s important for people to realize how dangerous prescription opioids can be.
“It’s not just about heroin,” he said. “The reality is that you can become addicted through medically prescribed use.”
The story of Don’s son Kevin is in many ways emblematic of a larger epidemic of deaths related to prescription opioids. A driven, high-achieving student, Kevin did not fit the stereotypes the general public has about people who are struggling with drug addiction.
Kevin Flattery moved to California shortly after graduating from UVa, hoping to make it in the entertainment industry. He was hired to review television commercial scripts for a studio — a job, his father said, that came with long hours, high pressure and tight deadlines.
Eventually, Kevin began “self-medicating” with OxyContin, Don Flattery said. The powerful painkilling drug is not supposed to be used to treat depression, but is often used that way because it can raise a person’s spirits without impairing mental faculties.
“Producing these commercials often come with 3 o’clock in the morning deadlines,” Flattery said. “It was a merciless grind.”
Kevin tried unsuccessfully to quit using several approaches — including inpatient care. The 26-year-old died a few days before he was supposed to start a new treatment regimen.
Since then, Flattery has been lobbying officials at the local, state and federal levels to make changes that could help curb the problem. Among other things, he has called for more aggressive education and outreach programs, and tried to increase the availability of naloxone — a drug used to reverse the effects of opioids.
Flattery, who lives in Fairfax County, said he goes to Washington often to speak with congressional staffers directly.
“I have been wearing out a lot of shoe leather the past 16 months, and being as much of a pest as I can to see people,” he said.
“It’s not therapeutic; it’s painful,” he added. “I just feel like I have to do something.”
Kaine is pushing a bill that would encourage doctors to co-prescribe naloxone with any opioid medication. The bill would set guidelines for doctors working in federal facilities, such as Veterans Affairs hospitals.
The bill also would create a program to provide state health departments with funding to help them establish their own co-prescribing guidelines, purchase naloxone and provide training to health care workers.
Most of the regulatory and legislative efforts to reduce the problem have come in the form of physician guidelines, said Richard Bonnie, director of UVa’s Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy.
Most of these guidelines advise physicians to avoid prescribing opioids when possible, Bonnie said.
“It’s an area of some tension between the effort to reduce the epidemic and at the same time allow physicians an appropriate amount of discretion,” he said.
But Bonnie said Kaine’s bill could be effective by helping health officials fight the epidemic at the state level.
“Senator Kaine’s bill, if enacted, [would] provide some of the education and technical assistance that the states need to combat this problem and save lives,” he said.
