U.S. House Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committee members earlier this week requested a federal briefing on the nation’s latest substance abuse and overdose trends, how they are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and what additional measures the United States government should undertake to address the ongoing crisis.

“While we continue to combat the COVID-19 crisis, we cannot lose sight of another: the ongoing substance use disorder (SUD) and overdose crisis that our country has been battling for decades,” according to an Aug. 11 letter sent to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar II by the E&C Committee members, who included Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR), Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), among others.

“Since 1999, over 750,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses, representing the worst drug crisis in American history,” the members wrote, “and we are concerned that overdose deaths are increasing while attention is focused on COVID-19.”

To support their request for a hearing, the lawmakers cited data from the National Center for Health Statistics showing that the reported number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. increased 4.6 percent between 2018 and 2019, from 67,850 to 70,980. “Now, recently reported increases in overdose deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic threaten to exacerbate these trends,” they wrote.

Additionally, recent reports indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the overdose crisis, “as more Americans are isolated, suffering from depression and economic hardship, and hesitant or unable to seek treatment,” according to their letter.

Further complicating matters are reports that some SUD treatment centers have closed, while the COVID-19 pandemic also has put on hold a billion-dollar federal research program focused on new forms of addiction treatment, the members wrote, noting that the rising use of stimulants, such as cocaine and methamphetamine, now also threatens to become the “fourth wave” of the SUD crisis.

“The world’s public health experts, governments, and industries are focused on the COVID-19 pandemic — and that work continues,” they wrote, “but we must not become complacent about other threats that our country faces, nor allow the progress we have made to become undone.”

Originally published here.