toxicology
lborkowski | October 26, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Earlier this year, federal officials put their foot down: New Hampshire could no longer use federal preparedness money to supports its poison control efforts. The directive sent state lawmakers scrambling to find extra funds so New Hampshire residents would still have access to the life-saving service. Without new money, New Hampshire callers to the Northern New England Poison Center would get a recording telling them to call 911 or go to the emergency room.
Fortunately, New Hampshire officials found enough funds to keep the service up and running for state residents this year…
terrasig | July 13, 2010In remarking Sunday on coverage of the synthetic marijuana products in The New York Times, I totally missed that a more detailed article appeared the day before in The Washington Post.
With contributions from Aaron C. Davis, the article by writer Michael W. Savage provided an insight into Spice use in Adams Morgan and around the District. The second page of the online article goes into much more detail than the NYT article by addressing the pros and cons of state approaches to outlaw the compounds and products.
Savage also included commentary by Marilyn Huestis, chief of chemistry and drug…
terrasig | July 8, 2010Toxicity reports are re-emerging in southern California this week after a dozen hospitalizations of kids using teas made from a fragrant flowering plant called Angel's Trumpet. A tea made from the plants is used to produce hallucinations, but they can progress to extremely unpleasant experiences. Moreover, Angel's Trumpet can be deadly, accelerating the heart rate and causing fatal cardiac rhythmic disturbances and bronchoconstriction that can trigger asthma attacks in sensitive individuals.
Angel's Trumpet is one of a series of plants in the Brugmansia genus that make a variety of muscarinic…
grrlscientist | July 1, 2010tags: vultures, Gyps species, conservation biology, endangered species, veterinary medicine, toxicology, physiology, evolutionary biology, pharmaceutical chemistry, epidemiology, mathematical modeling, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, journal club
Only thirty years ago, tens of millions of White-rumped Vultures, Gyps bengalensis,
were flying the skies of Asia. They are now classified as Critically Endangered.
Image: Marek Jobda / rarebirdsyearbook.com [larger view]
A zombie is another name for The Walking Dead -- those who are lifeless, apathetic, or totally lacking in…
terrasig | May 19, 2010The leadership team and all the staff here at Terra Sigillata world headquarters was taken aback yesterday when reports surfaced about the appearance of tar balls on the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park and Bahia Honda State Park, the closest long beach to Key West, Florida. A Coast Guard marine laboratory in Connecticut is currently examining the content of the tar balls to determine if they are indeed from, as feared, the BP Deepwater Horizon well. (Someone in the field has to help me out here but I believe there are an awful lot of LC/tandem mass spectrometers at Florida's…
terrasig | May 10, 2010This is going to be a quick welcome to Deborah Blum (@deborahblum) who has just moved her blog, Speakeasy Science, to ScienceBlogs.
Why quick?
Because I am only 22 pages away from finishing her latest book, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. This engaging tale of the race of science and medicine against chemical poisonings for profit and punishment features the true story of NYC chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler. Of course, the other actors are arsenic, methanol, chloroform, thallium, and radium,…
terrasig | April 14, 2010Down on the left sidebar you'll see a little gizmo for SiteMeter, a service that measures one's blog traffic and gives all sorts of tidbits about how readers got to the blog and a very general idea of where they are coming from. Most bloggers pay attention to the numbers of visitors but I have always been more interested in how readers get here and what posts they are reading.
One value of SiteMeter is to keep tabs on search terms that bring people here to learn of breaking stories. So, when I saw a bunch of hits starting yesterday with search terms like "hydrogen sulfide," I feared the…
terrasig | February 25, 2010A year ago we wrote about a death of a San Jose teenager from poisoning by hydrogen sulfide gas, or H2S. At the time, I had hypothesized that the death might have been from an attempt at synthesizing methamphetamine gone awry.
But while one can mistakenly generate hydrogen sulfide gas from improper meth synthesis, I soon learned that intentional suicides with H2S is an increasing US trend imported from Japan. One can easily mix commonly-available consumer products to generate the gas and high enough concentrations can cause death. The gas acts in a manner similar to cyanide by binding to the…
terrasig | February 16, 2010Just before Christmas, the US FDA issued a warning regarding a clay-based traditional West African remedy for morning sickness called Nzu or Calabar or Calabash clay. We discussed this topic here when the initial health warning came out from Texas.
The problem with the product is that it contains high levels of lead and arsenic that could be toxic to both fetus and mother.
And now the problem has expanded beyond Texas.
Scott Gavura at his excellent Science-Based Pharmacy blog tweeted earlier that the New York City Department of Health issued a similar warning today:
February 16, 2010 - A…
dblum | February 1, 2010On Friday, a 41-year-old Missouri woman was charged with poisoning her granddaughter with an anti-clotting medication. The reason: she wanted to scare the one-year-old's parents into uniting over the child's illness and giving up their divorce plans.
The poisoning was discovered when the little girl began bleeding uncontrollably from her mouth and nose. Although doctors treated her successfully, they expressed concern about long-term damage. High exposure to anti-coagulents, usually members of the Warfarin family of drugs, such as Coumadin, has been linked to heart and bone damage.
Bizarre as…
terrasig | January 19, 2010It seems that bodybuilding supplement makers are challenging erectile dysfunction supplement makers to see who can recall the greatest number of products adulterated with undeclared, unapproved drugs.
In this case, an internet retailer of the following supplements has issued a voluntary recall of the following supplements sold between June 1, 2009 and November 17, 2009. The recall follows an FDA warning letter on detection of undeclared, synthetic anabolic steroids in these products:
Advanced Muscle Science Dienedrone, 60 caps
Advanced Muscle Science Liquidrone, 60 ml
Anabolic Formulation M1…
terrasig | January 3, 2010Quick question for readers who conduct research with vertebrate animals.
We were gazing lovingly at the PharmBeagle this morning and got into a discussion that the beagle is on one of the primary model species for long-term toxicology studies required of drug companies by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Is there a comparative pharm/tox reason why do we not use squirrels, the arch enemy of the beagle?
terrasig | December 7, 2009Alexa Ray Joel, the daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, was hospitalized Saturday with what I originally thought was an overdose of some type of sedative.
However, today's Newsday and MTV are reporting that the family is calling this an overdose of a homeopathic medication called Traumeel. Traumeel is manufacturer by an Albuquerque-based company called Heel USA, a company founded by a German physician in the 1920s.
If Traumeel is truly homeopathic, there is absolutely no way this product could have caused Joel's hospitalization.
If you are new to our blog, you may not know the…
terrasig | August 27, 2009Today's post comes to your courtesy of yet another of my revered Canadian colleagues: pharmacist Scott Gavura, author of the excellent Science-Based Pharmacy blog.
Back in April, 21 Venezuelan polo horses from the Lechuza team died at the U.S. Open Polo Championship in Palm Beach County, Florida after being injected with a compounded supplement similar to Biodyl®intended to prevent equine rhabdomyolysis syndrome (EMS) - known otherwise as "tieing-up" or azoturia.
Franck's Pharmacy in Ocala, Florida - the heart of Florida's equine community - was the compounding pharmacy where the…
terrasig | August 24, 2009
Propofol.
For further information and detailed background, please see our previous post on this injectable anesthetic agent known as propofol or Diprivan®.
This L.A. Times article today also has a concise timeline of the events leading to the death of Michael Jackson
terrasig | August 16, 2009
Artemisinin is a natural product isolated from the leaves of the annual wormwood, Artemisia annua. Used originally in Chinese herbal medicine, the pure compound is employed in Africa as an inexpensive antimalarial drug. In April, 2009, the multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis received FDA approval for a combination drug called Coartem®, comprised of the semi-synthetic artemisinin analog, artemether, and another novel antimalarial, lumefantrine.
An herbal preparation of artemesinin has recently been associated with a single case of hepatic injury as reported in this week's issue of…
terrasig | July 28, 2009
We've spoken here every few months about so-called natural dietary supplements being adulterated with prescription drugs used for similar indications. The most common of these of late have been erectile dysfunction supplements which have been repeatedly found to contain the active compounds present in prescription E.D. products such as Viagra and Cialis.
The latest public health advisory from the US FDA concerns what appears to be a much more serious case of adulterations, this time with steroids in body-building supplements marketed as containing "steroid-like" compounds:
The FDA is…
terrasig | July 7, 2009While invoking my little-known real name, the ABC News Medical Unit shows its commitment to providing scientifically-objective and medically-valid commentary to the Michael Jackson circus.
The post cited was from 26 June where I discussed the first Michael Jackson revelation that he had repeatedly been given the unusual opioid drug, meperidine, presumably for his chronic back pain.
From this morning's ABC News story by Vic Walter and Richard Esposito with contributions from JoAnna Schaffhausen:
One pharmacologist blogged about [p]ropofol this week and explained in his science blog how Demerol…
terrasig | July 1, 2009Judging from the press inquiries I've had since 5 am EDT today, expect today's focus in the Michael Jackson case to be on the anesthetic drug, propofol (Diprivan®).
Last evening, California nutritionist and registered nurse Ms Cherilyn Lee gave an interview to Campbell Brown on CNN (and this AP exclusive report) describing Michael Jackson's repeated requests of her for the intravenous sedative drug for his insomnia. She wisely rejected his requests, instead providing him with a vitamin and mineral "energy" injection called Myers' cocktail.
However, four days before Jackson's death she…
terrasig | June 26, 2009AOL's celebrity gossip page TMZ.com was first yesterday to report Michael Jackson's death, in part due to their direct line to one or more Jackson family members.
They appear to have had another scoop today in referencing a family member who reported that Mr Jackson had received an injection of the opioid analgesic, Demerol (meperidine), at 11:30 am yesterday. It is not clear whether this shot was administered by Dr Conrad Murray, the physician who was present when the 911 call was made to L.A. dispatchers. (Non-US readers may also refer to meperidine as pethidine or the trade name, Pethadol…