Deaths from fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can shut down breathing in less than a minute, dramatically increased more than 1,000 percent from 2011 to 2016, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report revealed on Thursday. The fentanyl death toll between 2011 and 2012 held steady at about 1,600 deaths, but by 2016, that number skyrocketed to 18,335. The researchers, who are part of the National Center for Health Statistics, found that men and women had similar rates of fentanyl-related deaths until 2013. In 2016, the rate of men dying from fentanyl overdoses was almost three times that of women.