About SOS Foundation

The SOS Foundation is an exempt organization as described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code; with EIN 88-3739782 some or all of your donation may be tax-deductible. (Please check with your accountant or financial adviser for details)

Vision

To provide leadership and resources – programs, policies, information and data, funding, and personnel – advance mental and substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery services in order to improve individual, community, and public health.

Mission

To reduce the impact of substance misuse on America's communities.

104,000 people died from a polydrug overdose in 2021. That equals 275 young Americans who are dying every day in 2021. This was 16,000 in 1999. Despite the fact, we have an effective medicine available in the USA since 2002. There has been a steep and steady increase in deaths from 1999 to 2017 by 10-15%. In the last 2 years, it has increased by 30%, while the access to care has only increased by 1-2% per year in the last 21 years. According to CDC, “Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is a preventable disease, retroactively analysis of the autopsy results show that these deaths were unintentional, and patient waitlisted for Treatment have very high mortality”. The federal documents also state, “80% (CDC just reported 94%) of the patients with OUD have no access to care”. There are unnecessary limits regulations & oversight in addiction medicine, that do not exist in any other field of medicine. This has been a major hindrance for doctors to provide care to these very complex patients. As of 2021, there are 106,000 providers with necessary credentials in America to treat addictions but only 19,000 actively do so. These are more than 2 million in treatment, safe alive, and doing well with MAT. We need to focus on their success, which will motivate the rest to get effective help, MAT. There is a 53% reduction in manufacturing & consumption of prescription narcotics since 2016. At the same time, the first 4 drugs found on autopsy 60% of the time are heroin, cocaine, fentanyl & methamphetamine. 500 new regulations to curb pills and pill mills have not helped the crisis, now we are dealing with an opioid epidemic.

We will ensure, a reversal of overdose death rates in N. America, by providing:

• Greater access to providers trained in medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for OUD
• We would work with the policymakers to have practical, workable regulations and oversight on medications used in the treatment of opioid addiction
• We need to remove stigma towards addiction and towards the treatment of addiction.
• We need to end limits in how many patients, a qualified provider can help every month.
• We need to understand why 95% of all providers do not want to learn addiction medicine, this must be corrected and with the help of city, state and federal resources/guide, help them create a Vermont model for more comprehensive care.
• We also need to eliminate limits, regulations & oversight so that 85,000 plus with credentials sitting on the sidelines feel safe & not intimidated by regulation while trying to take care of patients with OUD.

The good news is, as of 2021, there are 106,000 providers whith necessary credentials to treat SUD. If all of them join the active workforce, we can overnight improve access to care to 10-20 million patients. Treating addictions effectively will save lives. We would like to see that the opioid epidemic is a closed chapter in America’s history.