An outbreak of designer drug-related deaths in Pennsylvania

Article Abstract:

The abuse of synthetic drugs, also known as "designer" drugs, particularly those with opiate effects, is becoming increasingly recognized. An outbreak of overdoses with the legal opiate fentanyl occurred between 1980 and 1985 in California. Like other opiates, fentanyl can cause death by blocking the transmission of nerve signals involved in breathing. This drug is maximally effective within four minutes of intravenous injection and is detected in the urine within 4 to 72 hours. 3-Methylfentanyl (TMF) or related forms of fentanyl were detected at autopsy in more than 100 overdose cases in California between 1980 and 1985. TMF is 1,000 times as potent as morphine, and is fatal in the rat at a dose of only 2.8 micromoles per kilogram, which is two percent of the lethal dose of morphine. Because effective doses of TMF are small, the amount of drug in biological samples is difficult to measure. The interaction of TMF with other drugs has not been studied extensively. TMF has not been approved for therapeutic use in the United States, and the drug is not produced legally. The number of overdose cases related to TMF use in California decreased after 1985. However, in October 1988, the number of drug overdose deaths increased four times the number occurring in the previous two years in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Undercover narcotics agents in Allegheny County discovered that samples of street drugs contained TMF, which had been manufactured since fall of 1987. TMF use was related to 16 drug overdose deaths in Allegheny County in October 1988. Morphine was detected in blood samples of five persons and cocaine in blood samples of three persons dying of TMF overdose. These cases shared demographic characteristics of 99 other drug overdose deaths occurring in the county between 1986 and 1988. Drug abusers in the northeastern United States are at risk of designer drug overdose outbreaks. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Health aspects, Drug abuse, Pennsylvania, Drug abuse and crime, Designer drugs

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Ethical aspects of banking placental blood for transplantation

Article Abstract:

Many issues have to be resolved before umbilical cord blood can be routinely transplanted. Cord blood is blood that is harvested from an infant's umbilical cord shortly after birth. It has been successfully used to reconstitute the immune system in people suffering from immunologic diseases and appears to be safer than bone marrow transplants from adult donors. It seems reasonable that cord blood should be considered a social good and should be kept in cord blood banks. However, parents would have to give informed consent before the blood could be harvested and would have to be contacted if blood testing reveals any genetic or infectious diseases. Information would have to be confidential to protect adults who donated cord blood as infants from discrimination such as that experienced by HIV-infected people. Cord blood should be harvested from all ethnic groups and should be available to all who need it.

Usage, Blood collection and preservation, Ethical aspects, Fetal blood

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