This new paper was led by principal investigator Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease doctor and associate professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Barocas and his colleagues focused on deaths related to drug use, which he said accounts for the “vast majority” of infections he’s seen in his career. “[Sweeps,] we predict, will contribute up to 25% of the deaths among this population over a 10-year period,” Barocas told us. “To put that a different way, it means our states and our cities are literally killing people with this.”