When Solving Puzzle Of Opioid Overdose, Medical Examiners Are Often Flying Blind
Bodies that by all indications shut down because of overdoses can show nothing on drug screens. Forensic pathologists' jobs are further complicated by the fact that they often have little information about how much of a drug was consumed or how soon before death.
Stat:
As Opioids Spread, Coroners See Wave Of Medical Mysteries
The medical examiners are puzzled, and the bodies aren’t giving up their secrets. The bodies belong to overdose victims, and when they arrive on autopsy tables here, many are laced with substances that officials have never seen before. Drug screens weren’t designed to identify them. The drugs are synthetic opioids, a growing collection of chemicals cooked up in labs and responsible for an increasing number of overdose deaths across the country. In this city and elsewhere, they are spinning mysteries for the medical examiners who are called upon to identify them. (Joseph, 11/22)
In other news about the opioid epidemic —
The Washington Post:
Her Daughter ‘Died’ From An Opioid Overdose. And Then ‘She Was Back.’
Roxanne Shuttleworth was in shock. Her 31-year-old daughter had called her on the phone to explain that she and a friend had overdosed on a drug that, unknown to them, was cut with carfentanil, a deadly synthetic opioid that authorities say is 10,000 times stronger than morphine and 100 times stronger than its cousin, fentanyl. Her daughter was in a hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she had been brought in as "an unknown," or a Jane Doe — too ill to communicate with the medical team that was trying to keep her alive. Once she regained consciousness, she called her mother and told her that she had died but that doctors had then saved her with an opioid overdose antidote known as naloxone. (Bever, 11/21)
The Washington Post:
Virginia Declares Opioid Emergency, Makes Antidote Available To All
Virginia’s health commissioner on Monday declared opioid addiction to be a public health emergency and issued a standing prescription for any resident to get the drug Naloxone, which is used to treat overdoses. Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) said the actions are in response to not only the rising problem of painkiller overdoses, but also to evidence that a synthetic large-animal sedative called Carfentamil is being abused in Virginia. (Schneider, 11/21)
WBUR:
How To Spot — And Treat — Addiction In Your Family
More Americans now use prescription painkillers than tobacco. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed. And that, of course, is hardly the only path to addiction. This week, many families will gather for Thanksgiving. Too many will be facing addiction in the family. (Ashbrook, 11/21)