Meg Farris, Medical Reporter
Erika Ferrando, Reporter
Keith Esparros, News Director
WWL TV
1024 N Rampart St
New Orleans, LA 70116

 

July 21, 2021

 

Dear Ms. Ferrando, Ms. Farris and Mr. Esparros:

We write today alongside families of children poisoned by fake pills made with fentanyl. We read your articles and on-air segments about Hailey Deickman’s death with hope, and are grateful you are using them to spread awareness of the danger of counterfeit pills.

Belle Chasse High School senior dies of overdose days before graduation (Meg Farris, 5/19/21)

Belle Chasse High School senior overdose highlights national crisis: 1 in 4 fake pills contains lethal Fentanyl (Erika Ferrando, 5/20/21)

On-Air segment

ON-AIR: Arrest made in Belle Chasse overdose death (WWL staff, Meg Farris, 5/21/2021)

 

While we appreciate that reporters don’t always write their own headlines, the use of the word overdose in news coverage of fake pills deaths is problematic: It does not accurately describe what killed Ms. Deickman.

The half a Percocet pill that she consumed would not have killed her if it had been genuine Percocet. She did not overdose on Percocet, and since she didn’t know she was taking fentanyl, she did not overdose on that either. She was poisoned.

The public health consequence of misdescribing these deaths as overdoses instead of poisonings is that many families will ignore the warning, because they think “overdoses” only happen to families with addicts.

The families we work with have told us they were unaware of the danger of fake pills. Law enforcement and public health officials have been warning about this danger for five years, but it has been misdescribed as a problem related to addiction, and many don’t understand it can affect anyone.

We have asked the Associated Press Stylebook to consider changing their guidelines about how they cover this issue (attached) and we ask you to make a commitment to describing these deaths as poisonings rather than overdoses.

It would help a great deal if you could help educate other reporters about the difference between overdose and poisoning simply by tweeting your support of our proposal to the AP’s Stylebook at @apstylebook. You can do that at www.safemedicines.org/2021/05/poison-not-overdose.html

Thank you for your coverage of these deaths, your public health warnings, and for your consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

Shabbir Imber Safdar, Executive Director
The Partnership for Safe Medicines