toxicology
terrasig | May 4, 2009My clinical counterpart, surgical oncologist Dr David Gorski, has an excellent post up today at Science-Based Medicine on the irresponsible and misleading information being provided at The Huffington Post during the current H5N1/2009 influenza ("swine flu") outbreak. "The Huffington Post's War on Medical Science: A Brief History" provides a cautionary tale for us in embracing web-based news sources as our excellent print newspapers are going by the wayside.
Within the post, Dr Gorski shows that he is even more familiar with my writing than myself by citing a post at the old Terra Sig on the…
terrasig | April 29, 2009Regular commenter and friend of Terra Sig, leigh (the path forward), let us know overnight that Florida State Veterinarian Dr Thomas J Holt officially confirmed that selenium overdose killed 21 Venezuelian polo horses in Wellington, Florida, on 19 April.
An attempt by an Ocala, Florida, compounding pharmacy to reproduce an equine dietary supplement called Biodyl resulted in a toxic dose of sodium selenite to be given to the horses. The pharmacy is cooperating fully with the FDA and other authorities but there is no official word as to whether the pharmacy made a calculation error or were…
terrasig | April 13, 2009An interesting question arose the other day when we discussed the Key West acupuncturist who was diverting prescription drugs for personal use as well as in her practice. While we are not certain that the defendant put the cited muscle relaxants and anxiolytics in remedies doled out at her practice, we doubt that the demographic she targeted would be too impressed if she were to hand out prescription drugs.
This scenario led our scientific and blogging colleague, DrugMonkey, to ask how common it might be for alternative practitioners to dope their herbs with prescription drugs exhibiting…
terrasig | March 31, 2009A little over a week ago, we posted on the very sad story of the accidental death of a University of Colorado sophomore from ingesting poppy seed tea. The poppy, Papaver somniferum, is the commercial source for prescription narcotic painkillers such as morphine and codeine. The seeds can be had online and in retail stores. The plants can often be grown if these seeds are not roasted or otherwise sterilized.
I had originally suspected that the CU-Boulder student had not used poppy seed tea but rather some other decoction of the plant itself. I had always contended that the seeds did not…
terrasig | March 9, 2009
I'm very proud today to see one of my formative professors, Dr Fulton Crews, quoted extensively in a USAToday article on a new, web-based alcohol awareness initiative, "Rethinking Drinking," from NIH's National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Division of Treatment and Recovery Research.
While many associate heavy drinking with liver problems, it can also increase the risk for heart disease, sleep disorders, depression, stroke and stomach bleeding. Consumed during pregnancy, it can cause fetal brain damage, says Fulton Crews, director of the Bowles Center for Alcohol…
terrasig | February 14, 2009Yes, this is what happens when two scientists stay home on Valentine's evening. PharmGirl just fed me the story from CNN about the San Jose high school kid who died yesterday after being taken unconscious from his house on Thursday.
The national and local stories indicate that "two pans containing hydrogen sulfide were found on a table in the teenager's bedroom."
Hydrogen sulfide, H2S, is a gas, one that smells of rotting eggs.
The only way it could be in liquid form is if it were bubbled through water or some other solvent.
But why would a kid have pans of liquid with H2S?
My gut made me…
terrasig | December 30, 2008I see you - I've been there.
You're sitting in the lab the day before New Year's Eve looking at what you've done over the last year - or last six years - and thinking about how you're ever going to turn this postdoc or extended grad school period into some gainful career. The economy is for hell no matter where you live and you're wondering if this is all worth it.
Well, as I've said before, don't limit your options until you explore them. The US drug, medical device, food, cosmetic regulatory and safety agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), can provide a really satisfying…
terrasig | October 12, 2008When dialing up SiteMeter this morning over the first cup of coffee, I noted an unusually large number of hits coming from Fark.com to my post on a NEJM article detailing lead poisoning cases among marijuana users in Germany.
In that article, lead shavings were used to boost dime bags that were "a little light." The combustion of the particles lead to lead poisoning in users and is one of the few scenarios where use of a chelating agent ((2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid; DMSA; succimer; Chemet®) was both indicated and effective.
Turns out that the Fark.com hits today are coming from a forum…
terrasig | September 30, 2008This morning's post from Molecule of the Day reminds me to ask "cyanuric acid question."
With the recent adulterations with melamine of Chinese milk and milk products (like White Rabbit chocolates) and foods with other milk-derived ingredients, we wonder if we will ultimately hear that a compound from fertilizer, cyanuric acid, is part of the mix.
Melamine is a cheap chemical that gives a false positive in typical protein assays; therefore, it can be used to make food appear to contain more protein than it actually does. You'll often hear of cyanuric acid being referred to as a pool chemical…
terrasig | September 6, 2008When one serves on NIH grant review panels, or study sections, one must now register with the US government as a government contractor in order to get reimbursement for hotel and meals, plus the staggering $200 honorarium for each day of the meeting (for which you have spent between two and four weeks of reading, writing, and prep time.)
As a result, you get on e-mail lists for all sorts of federal solicitations for bids on all kinds of projects, or "federal business opportunities." I chose not to opt out of these e-mails because, well, you just can't have enough e-mail, right?.
In all…
terrasig | April 14, 2008Apologies in advance for just this quick link, but the topic is very timely given our highly-read post last week suggesting the repeal/modification of DSHEA, the primary US legislation directing the weak oversight of the dietary supplement industry.
Herbal Science International, Inc. and FDA informed consumers and healthcare professionals of a nationwide recall of twelve dietary supplements that contain ephedra, aristolochic acid or human placenta because they may present a serious health hazard to consumers [press release]. FDA has long regarded dietary supplements containing ephedra, a…
terrasig | April 12, 2008". . .you got marijuana in my lead."
Two great tastes that do not go great together (with apologies).
[Welcome Fark.com readers on 12 Oct 2008 - I comment on the recent story here and you can read our other posts on drugs of abuse here. Thanks for stopping by - APB]
A concise but fascinating medical detective story appears in the letters of this week's (10 Apr 2008) issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (free full text at the time of this posting.).
An astute group of physicians at Leipzig Hospital in Germany noted a local surge of young people presenting with classic symptoms of…
terrasig | April 10, 2008The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) allows herbal and non-herbal supplements to be sold in the US without demonstration of effectiveness or safety. Despite recent improvements in Good Manufacturing Practices required of supplement manufacturers, these products still pose significant risks to the population simply because the hands of regulatory authorities are tied - products cannot be removed from the market until there is evidence for lack of safety, meaning that consumers must first be harmed before FDA is authorized to intervene.
After cautions a couple weeks…
terrasig | March 26, 2008No, it's not a song by Foreigner - these are the names of two products "promoted and sold over the Internet for the treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED) and for sexual enhancement."
In yet another instance of a trend that would be comical if not so serious, the US FDA has announced that "Blue Steel" and "Hero" supplements contain chemical relatives of sildenafil, the active constituent of the prescription medication Viagra.
"Because these products are labeled as 'all natural dietary supplements,' consumers may assume that they are harmless and pose no health risk," said Janet Woodcock, M.…
terrasig | February 29, 2008Bisphenol A (BPA) is currently one of the major lightning rods for controversy in consumer products and public health research. The compound is used in the manufacture of plastic bottles, polycarbonate (PC) in particular, as well as in the lining of many food and beverage cans. The compound has been recognized since the 1930s as having estrogenic activity but it appears to have developmental, carcinogenic, and neurotoxic effects at concentrations well below those at which it binds to the two forms of estrogen receptor.
Confused?
US governmental advisory committees can't even agree on BPA…
terrasig | February 6, 2008I'll leave my neuropharmacology and neuroscience colleagues to comment in greater detail on this story (see earlier DrugMonkey post), but this report is just in from AP on Heath Ledger's toxicology report:
The cause of death was "acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine," spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said in a statement.
I haven't seen a copy of the report itself (maybe Smoking Gun will have it soon) but plasma concentrations of each were not noted. However, this was the statement from the family:
In a statement…
terrasig | January 29, 2008. . .that's the message from Dr Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, to heroin and morphine users whose lives might be saved in the overdose situation by public distribution of "overdose rescue kits" comprised of a $9.50 nasal spray containing Narcan.
Narcan is the brand name for naloxone, an antagonist (blocker) of these drugs at μ opioid receptors. When an overdose of opioid drugs binds to these receptors in the respiratory control center of a primitive part of our brain, one stops breathing, a situation that pathologists say is "…
terrasig | January 1, 2008...there is a very colorful discussion thread of hangover remedies over at the WSJ Health Blog.
Yesterday, Health Blog's Jacob Goldstein briefly discussed a 2000 Annals of Internal Medicine paper on alcohol hangovers and remedies/prophylactic approaches. Despite all of the discussion, Goldstein also cites a 2005 systematic review in BMJ by Max Pittler and Edzard Enrst at Exeter that concluded,
No compelling evidence exists to suggest that any conventional or complementary intervention is effective for preventing or treating alcohol hangover. The most effective way to avoid the symptoms of…
terrasig | November 8, 2007My wife just reminded me that PharmKid wanted us to buy her Aqua Dots a week or two ago.
The WSJ Health Blog nicely summarizes a New York Times article on the recall of the toy beads because their ingestion releases the CNS suppressant, GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyrate), from a precursor present in the bead adhesive.
Yes, the product was manufactured in China, but it was distributed by a company in Toronto.
A recall has been ordered by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The NYT article by Keith Bradsher has a great angle on how a scientist identified the GHB and GHB precursor after a case…
terrasig | April 16, 2007EPA agrees to cut lead in kids' products
The lawsuit also followed the death of 4-year-old Jarnell Brown of Minneapolis, who died last year from acute lead poisoning by swallowing part of a heart-shaped charm bracelet distributed by Reebok International Ltd. The child's death was ruled accidental, but Reebok recalled 300,000 of the silver-colored, Chinese-made bracelets found to be 90 percent lead that the company had given away with its shoes.
In December, the commission began taking steps to ban, rather than recall as it has been doing, children's jewelry containing more than 0.06 percent…