Several marijuana products have been identified as possible culprits in the mysterious epidemic of serious lung illnesses that has sickened more than 800 people who use vaping devices and e-cigarettes to inhale THC or nicotine, or both. Health officials said on Friday that the products include THC-filled vaping cartridges labeled "Dank Vapes," as well as some other illicit brands that people bought from friends or family or on the street. But officials said Dank Vapes appeared to be a label that THC sellers can slap on any product and is not a specific formulation or a single product. THC is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. [continues 1071 words]
They had stomach cramps, nausea, anemia and fatigue, and some even had a telltale bluish line along their gums -- classic signs of lead poisoning. But the cases, last year in Leipzig, Germany, puzzled doctors. Lead poisoning is rare in Germany, and yet here were 29 cases in just a few months. The doctors noticed a pattern: the patients were young, from 16 to 33; they were students or unemployed; and they had body piercings and a history of smoking. In a letter published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, the doctors wrote, "On questioning, all the patients eventually conceded that they were regular users of marijuana." [continues 234 words]
The government warned yesterday that painkilling skin patches could cause drug overdoses and said it was investigating reports of serious side effects and 120 deaths that might have resulted. The patches, containing the narcotic fentanyl, are marketed under the name Duragesic by Janssen, a company owned by Johnson & Johnson. A generic version was put on the market in February by Mylan Laboratories. Duragesic had sales of more than $2 billion in 2004. The patches are intended for people with moderate to severe chronic pain that requires treatment around the clock for an extended period of time and that cannot be controlled by other narcotics alone, the F.D.A. and the manufacturer say. Only those already tolerant of narcotics, as some cancer patients are, should use the patches. People recovering from surgery, or suffering from short-term pain for other reasons, should not. [continues 378 words]
A string of mysterious infections at a hospital from 1998 to 1999 were traced to a most unexpected source, doctors are reporting today: a respiratory therapist who is suspected of having used a needle and syringe to steal a narcotic from the bags of intravenous medicine that were hanging by the bedsides of critically ill patients. The therapist is believed to have contaminated the medications while tapping into them. The case, being described today in The New England Journal of Medicine, was uncommon, said Dr. Belinda E. Ostrowsky, who led an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But it sheds light on the wider problem of drug abuse among health care workers and its potential to harm patients. [continues 551 words]
Research in mice may help explain something that doctors have noticed in people who are infected with H.I.V.: cocaine use seems to make the disease progress faster and lead to more of the opportunistic infections that are the hallmark of AIDS. The reason is not known. Drug abusers often eat poorly, have unprotected sex and neglect their health in other ways, so it has been impossible to tell whether their problems are due to cocaine itself or to the other habits that often go with addiction. [continues 536 words]
A study titled "We Don't Carry That" suggests that people who need medication for severe pain may have trouble getting it if they live in neighborhoods that are mostly black, Hispanic or Asian. A survey of 347 pharmacies in New York City, conducted by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, found that in nonwhite neighborhoods only 25 percent of pharmacies carried enough morphine or morphine-like drugs to treat severe pain; in white neighborhoods, 72 percent did. Interviews with doctors and pharmacists in Los Angeles and the Midwest suggested similar problems there. [continues 265 words]
Cancer patients and others with severe pain who live in black, Asian and Hispanic neighborhoods may have trouble getting medicine for their pain, because their local pharmacies often do not stock morphine and related drugs, doctors are reporting. A survey of 347 pharmacies in New York City found that in nonwhite neighborhoods, only 25 percent of pharmacies had enough morphine-like drugs, or opioids, to treat severe pain. But in white neighborhoods, 72 percent of the stores had adequate supplies. Although the survey was conducted in New York, interviews with pharmacists and doctors in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit suggested similar problems in those cities. [continues 1019 words]
Reports of research on drugs tend to exaggerate the drugs' benefits, making them sound better than they really are, according to an article and editorial being published on Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The exaggeration occurs for several reasons: positive results tend to be published more often than negative ones, researchers sometimes publish the same study more than once and some poorly designed studies slip through the safety net of journal editors and expert reviewers who should screen them out. [continues 1151 words]
When doctors need information about what dose of medicine to prescribe, they usually consult a fat navy blue book called the Physicians' Desk Reference -- P.D.R. for short -- which is an extensive compilation of data about drugs from their manufacturers. But the doses recommended in the P.D.R. may be too high for many people and may cause adverse reactions, ranging from dizziness and nausea all the way to death, according to an article published last month in the journal Postgraduate Medicine. For many drugs -- including Viagra, Prozac and some medicines used to treat high blood pressure, allergies, insomnia and high cholesterol -- smaller doses would work just as well as the standard ones, with far less risk of bad reactions, said the author of the article, Dr. Jay S. Cohen, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego. [continues 1112 words]
NEW YORK---If a biographer wanted to wnte about about a spectacular comeback from notoriety to respectability, and the tenuous nature of comebacks, a good subject might be nicotine. After denouncing nicotine for the highly addictive properties that hook people on tobacco, scientists are rehabilitating it, not only as a means of helping smokers to break their habit, but also as a potential treatment for a variety of other disorders,.including stress, the intestinal condition ulcerative colitis, Alzheimer's disease Parkinson's disease, attention deficit disorder and Tourette ' s syndrome. [continues 873 words]
NEW YORK---As anyone who has tried to quit smoking knows, it is much easier to get off an addictive drug than to stay off it. That applies to virtually all addicts and all types of addictions, whether to alcohol, cocaine, heroin, nicotine or amphetamines. Long after the drug is cleared from the body, it retains a powerful hold on the mind, and despite weeks, months or sometimes even years of abstinence, cravings can linger or suddenly make a shattering comeback. The usual, devastating consequence is relapse. [continues 1886 words]
