[ad_1]
A San Diego County Sheriff’s Department public service video on the dangers of fentanyl – with footage of an MP who allegedly overdosed after brief exposure – sparked a backlash and allegations the drug effort could harm the people it is supposed to help: law enforcement and drug addicts.
Body-worn camera video is stark and dramatic. A young sheriff’s deputy opens the back of a suspect’s car, sees a white powder he thinks is fentanyl, then collapses on the sidewalk. His field trainer tears up a packet of naloxone, the deadly drug antidote, and swears, “I’m not going to let you die.
The video ends with a warning from Sheriff Bill Gore that “being exposed to a few small grains of fentanyl could have fatal consequences.”
There is just one problem. The risks of so-called passive exposure to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl are exaggerated, according to interviews with medical experts and scientific studies. These inaccurate messages create unnecessary fear among first responders, they said, and could make them hesitate to treat people who have overdosed.
“It’s a big deal,” said Dr Lewis Nelson, chair of the emergency medicine department at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School on Sunday. “I’m afraid the officers themselves will be injured. It is like a PTSD fear of this drug when in reality it is not justified. And I’m afraid people won’t save those who have overdosed for fear of exposure.
The San Diego Sheriff’s Department did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
A study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy in June found that law enforcement officials across the country “mistakenly believed that dermal exposure to fentanyl was fatal and expressed fear of such exposure. exhibition on site. Officers lacked information about fentanyl exposure and sources of misleading or questionable information about it. “
Most had heard stories in the news, on social media or by word of mouth about first responders who overdosed while touching the drug, the study found, but the symptoms allegedly endured in those episodes were akin more to panic attacks than to fentanyl poisoning. .
Two leading medical associations published a joint position statement in the journal Clinical Toxicology in 2017 on preventing fentanyl exposure in emergency responders. It started with a caveat.
Although fentanyl and other drugs designed to mimic its effects have fueled an overdose epidemic in North America, “the risk of clinically significant exposure for emergency responders is extremely low,” according to the statement. American Academy of Clinical Toxicology and American College of Medical Toxicology.
“To date, we have not seen reports of emergency responders developing signs or symptoms consistent with opioid toxicity following accidental contact with opioids,” the groups wrote.
That’s not the feeling a viewer would have watching the San Diego Sheriff’s video, which was released on Thursday. The grim, four-minute PSA intersects with body camera footage of a July 3 incident with interviews with Gore, Deputy David Faiivae and his training officer, Cpl. Scott Crane, to help people understand how deadly fentanyl is.
In one scene, Faiivae looks out of the back of a red SUV. Crane’s voice echoes as he addresses the trainee: “He has tested positive for fentanyl. This is not a joke. It’s super dangerous. Then Faiivae falls like a dead weight, stiff arms flapping as he hits the sidewalk.
Then Crane takes up the story again. “I ran to him. He was OD’ing. I went in my trunk, took out the Narcan, ”Crane said, using the brand name for naloxone. “I did a nasal spray in one nostril. … another nasal spray in the other.
The following is a plethora of dramatic scenes with serious statements strung throughout:
Crane: “He’s an invisible killer. He would have died in that parking lot if he had been alone.
Faiivae: “I almost died from an overdose of fentanyl.
Gore: “The dangers of fentanyl are real, and this drug is killing our communities. “
According to body camera footage, which was edited by the department, Faiivae was rushed to hospital. Sheriff officials have not released a medical record detailing his condition, nor indicated whether he had been exposed to fentanyl by touching or inhaling it or even if fentanyl was found in his system.
The dangers Gore notes are real, but not in the way the video describes them.
“The biological plausibility that this is a contact overdose is zero,” said Dr. Jeremy Samuel Faust, who wrote about what he calls “opioid hysteria” in The New York Times and Slate magazine. Faust is an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
As for briefly inhaling fentanyl in the air, “you really have to go.”
“People with opioid use disorders don’t inject opioids because they want to,” he said in an interview on Sunday. “It’s the only way for them to get the effects they’re looking for. Otherwise, they would just touch it. … I have never once seen a toxicological report from one of these [first responder] cases which showed that the “victim” had real fentanyl in his body. “
The San Diego video, Faust said, “is a diagnosis of nothing. It shows that someone had an altered level of consciousness and improved, but not why. ”
Caleb Banta-Green, a senior researcher at the University of Washington’s Institute of Addiction, Drugs and Alcohol, said fentanyl poisoning fears following brief exposure reminded him of how HIV-infected patients were being treated at the start of this pandemic.
“Medical providers were unwilling to treat or go to the room of people with HIV,” Banta-Green said. “Law enforcement has very difficult jobs to do … but this spontaneous response to an overdose has never been documented. He was glorified.
[ad_2]
Source link