Eric Bedingfield Shares Story of Son’s Overdose to Help Fight Opioid Abuse
Charleston, S.C. [March 31, 2021] – Former South Carolina Representative, Eric Bedingfield knows the pain of losing a child to the nation’s opioid epidemic. Bedingfield is one of thousands of parents who face this heartbreaking loss each and every year in the United States. “The last picture I have of my son is blue, laying prone on the floor,” said Eric Bedingfield. “I don’t wish that on anybody. The challenges related to saying goodbye to someone who should be saying goodbye to you first… is not something that goes away.” Bedingfield agreed to share his story about his son Josh with the Okra Medical team after learning about the company and its focus on delivering a better solution for disposing of addictive prescription drugs like opioids. Bedingfield’s story is captured in this video.
“Bedingfield believes Josh’s addiction started in high school with a “pill party”. Josh lost his battle on Easter Sunday 2016, he was only 26 years old.”
Bedingfield believes Okra Medical’s product SafeMedWaste could help save lives by providing a more complete destruction solution for opioids and other highly-addictive prescription drugs.
“I think it will save lots of lives, because many kids and adults who get addicted to them- take them out of families and friends medicine cabinets,” Bedingfield said.
During Bedingfield’s time in public office, he served as chair of The House Opioid Epidemic Study Committee. A thorough investigation by his committee revealed the only way to destroy opioids was to incinerate them – a process that is expensive and harmful to the environment. “We started looking to buy mobile incinerators to deploy across the state,” but Bedingfield said the regulations were massive and the environmental impact was detrimental. “We started looking for solutions to that and fortunately my friends and Okra Medical have found one,” Bedingfield says.
Okra Medical’s new product SafeMedWaste provides a safe, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective solution to destroy the most commonly abused and highly addictive controlled substances, including opioids. Okra Medical’s mission is to improve public health by bridging science and innovation to impact the social problem of addiction to controlled substances. “SafeMedWaste limits access to these highly addictive substances.
We may not completely solve the epidemic, but we can make a good dent in it,” said Okra Medical CTO Justin Stas. “We are grateful Eric is willing to tell his difficult story. The threat from misused prescription drugs is something that is easy to overlook until it is too late.”
About Okra Medical Inc.
Okra Medical, Inc., headquartered in Johns Island, South Carolina, specializes in product development, manufacturing and strategic sourcing of controlled pharmaceutical substance disposal solutions. Founded in 2018, the Company’s mission is to improve public health. Its best-in-class suite of SafeMedWaste products use single formulas that are fully compliant with DEA regulations requiring non-retrievable destruction of controlled substances. Okra Medical is a strategic sourcing partner to hospitals, hospice facilities, law enforcement agencies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and veterinary care clinics. Visit www.okramedical.com
