How US life expectancy fell off a cliff

"One factor explains why a gulf has opened between America and its wealthy peers: deaths from drug overdoses".
" As recently as 10 years ago, you might have struggled to pick the US out of the pack on a chart of life expectancy, but today that task could scarcely be easier. If we put aside the grim mortality shock of the past two years for a moment, the pattern is stark: a flock of developed countries streaks up and to the right, and then one solitary line slows, falters, and begins falling back to earth".

John Burn-Murdoch