• Lidocaine, a widely used anesthetic, has seen poisoning deaths nearly triple in a decade, now accounting for 82% of local anesthetic fatalities.

• A new study reveals a 50% surge in lidocaine poisonings since 2016, driven by reckless overuse in outpatient clinics and emergency settings.

• Misperceptions of lidocaine's safety lead to fatal overdoses, causing seizures, cardiac arrest, and systemic toxicity often missed by untrained providers.

• Outpatient cosmetic and dental clinics are high-risk settings, with untrained staff administering dangerous doses and lacking emergency treatments like lipid emulsion therapy.

• Experts demand stricter oversight and training, warning that without action, preventable deaths will continue to rise.

A supposedly harmless painkiller widely used in homes and clinics across America has been linked to a shocking surge in fatal poisonings—and the medical establishment is failing to sound the alarm.

Lidocaine, a common local anesthetic found in creams, sprays, and injections, has seen poisoning deaths nearly triple over the past decade, with fatalities increasingly occurring in outpatient settings where untrained staff administer the drug without proper oversight. A bombshell new study analyzing more than 200,000 poisoning cases reveals that lidocaine-related deaths now account for 82% of local anesthetic fatalities, up from just 67% in 2010.