While the epidemic of overdose deaths caused by opioid painkillers is gaining considerable attention, there's another kind of prescription drug that also is leading to fatalities. A new study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that anti-anxiety medications are involved in increasing numbers of deaths. Benzodiazepines such as Valium and Xanax that are used to treat anxiety, panic disorders and insomnia, can be deadly when abused or combined with other drugs or alcohol, as they can depress a patient's respiratory system. Deaths involving these medications increased more than four-fold between 1996 and 2013, the study says. Study