Pam Bondi Flatters Trump With Claim That 75% of America Would Be Dead If Not for Him
rollingstone.com
The attorney general touted that the administration has seized 3,400 kilos of fentanyl since Trump took office, before turning from Trump to face the camera. “Which saved — are you ready for this, media? — 258 million lives.
The greatest number of Americans to ever die of opioid overdoses in a single year was 112,600 in 2022, meaning that Ms. Bondi was expecting that this year would usher in a 229,000% jump in opioid deaths above our all-time record. Impressively improbable. As someone who administers fentanyl every day at work (with zero fatalities), I know a thing or two about how it works. Fentanyl deaths are caused by #respiratorydepression. I gave the Attorney General the benefit of the doubt and assumed that she simply divided the weight of seized fentanyl by the number of potentially #lethal doses therewithin: The average US adult is 85 kg, the average apneic dose of fentanyl is 5 mcg/kg (although individual responses are variable), yielding a 425 mcg dose. I rounded up to 500 mcg to assure that there were no hypothetical survivors. 3,400 kg of seized fentanyl would yield 6.8 billion lethal doses, which is 86% of the world’s population. Way off. While its great to have fentanyl off of the streets, its quite clear that we were not in danger of the losses stated at the cabinet meeting, and its equally clear that no one is doing any #factchecking -let alone #math, when reporting important matters to the public.