Bill would give county medical examiners ability to establish review teams to investigate overdose deaths in Michigan
LANSING, Mich. (March 2, 2023) — Today, Sen. Sean McCann (D–Kalamazoo) reintroduced legislation, Senate Bill 133, that would allow county medical examiners or health officers to establish an Overdose Fatality Review Team (OFRT) to investigate overdose–related deaths. These teams would work to better understand local risk factors, trends, and share recommendations with local health departments and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).
“In recent years, we have seen the rise of opioids in our communities, which has had a devastating impact on families across our nation. It has become abundantly apparent that Michigan needs the same tools established in places like Arizona, West Virginia, and Maryland to handle this rising crisis,” Sen. McCann said. “We need to give Michigan’s medical examiners and community stakeholders an opportunity to use their expertise to review these trends and develop solutions to this growing epidemic.”
SB 133 would provide county medical examiners with the legal authority to create an OFRT team and conduct their work, as well as provide them with the ability to grant appropriate confidentiality protections for the victims involved. State law already includes similar allowances for elder death review and child death review.
“Preliminarily, the number of drug-related deaths investigated by our office for 13 Michigan counties remained very high and essentially unchanged from 2021 to 2022. Approximately 73 percent of the drug-related deaths in 2022 involved at least one opioid, and over 37 percent involved methamphetamine,” commented Joyce L. deJong, DO, Medical Examiner and founding chair of the Department of Pathology of Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine. “Overdose fatality review teams work to assess risk factors and to identify gaps in access to harm reduction tools associated with these premature deaths. Providing counties with the ability to form these review teams will help guide mitigation strategies and assist the communities they serve with vital information about the arrival of novel substances.”
An OFRT is a collaborative effort of community stakeholders, including the county medical examiner, county health officer, first responders, law enforcement, health care professionals, and others.
SB 133 has been referred to the Senate Health Policy Committee.
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