Symposium Update | The Next Chapter of the Opioid Epidemic, The Xylazine Crisis

Last weekend, the Foundation hosted the first of its kind Symposium focused on the Xylazine Crisis, which is plaguing our community and spreading across the country. This new chapter of the Opioid Epidemic is borne out of increasing illicit opioid injection now increasing laced with xylazine (aka, tranq), resulting in severe wounds often requiring complex reconstructive surgeries and even amputation in advanced cases.

The Symposium brought together leading addiction medicine and reconstructive surgeons from across Philadelphia’s medic centers - including: Jefferson, Drexel, Temple, Penn, and Cooper. The Symposium also hosted health officials from the City of Philadelphia and legislators from Pennsylvania’s General Assembly in Harrisburg. The Symposium allowed for a forum to share the growing knowledge of this crisis of opioid addiction and the secondary destructive wounds that occur in those injecting illicit opioids such as fentanyl laced with xylazine. 

“The Rothman Institute Foundation for Opioid Research and Education remains committed to advancing solutions and collaborations around the opioid epidemic. The xylazine crisis discussed today is just the latest chapter for us to address. The Foundation, along with its partners and supporters are committed to finding evidenced-based innovative strategies focused on prevention, treatment - medically and surgically, and counseling”

- ASIF ILYAS, MD, MBA, FACS, President of the Foundation