America’s fentanyl crisis increasingly involves coroners, medical examiners and more

Dr. Corinne Stern is a different kind of doctor.

Instead of helping sick patients get better, Stern’s job is to get to the bottom of what killed a person — by determining the cause and manner of death.

For more than 15 years, Stern has served as the county medical examiner in Laredo, Texas, investigating everything from freak accidents to violent crimes.

But in the last year, she began to notice a disturbing link to many of the bodies on her autopsy table.

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“Prior to 2021, it was rare for me to see a fentanyl death in this office,” Dr. Stern told Fox News.

“Now, I would say at least half of my drug overdoses have fentanyl,” she continued.

Dr. Stern certainly isn’t alone.

Perhaps no other profession is more involved in America’s unfolding fentanyl crisis than those tasked with investigating overdose deaths — the country’s coroners, forensic pathologists and medical examiners.

“These overdoses are impacting all ages,” says Bobbi Jo O’Neal, coroner for Charleston County, S.C.

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“From old or young, teenagers, up into their 80s … all demographics,” she said.

O’Neal also serves as president of the International Association of Coroners and Medical Examiners, a group that assists other industry professionals in honing their craft.

The total street value of the 150,000 pills seized recently in California was estimated to be $750,000, according to the sheriff’s office.
(Tulare County Sheriff’s Office)

She said that colleagues across the country, from big cities to little towns, are seeing a growing number of counterfeit pills.

“It can say Xanax on the pill, or they have the coding — but they can be fake and they are actually…