Medical Discovery News
Science permeates everyday life. Yet the understanding of advances in biomedical science is limited at best. Few people make the connection that biomedical science is medicine and that biomedical scientists are working today for the medicine of tomorrow. Our weekly five-hundred-word newspaper column (http://www.illuminascicom.com/) and two-minute radio show provide insights into a broad range of biomedical science topics. Medical Discovery News is dedicated to explaining discoveries in biomedical research and their promise for the future of medicine. Each release is designed to stimulate listeners to think, question and appreciate how science affects their health as well as that of the rest of the world. We also delve into significant biomedical discoveries and portray how science (or the lack of it) has impacted health throughout history.
Medical Discovery News
Even Worse than Fentanyl
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912 Even Worse Than Fentanyl
Welcome to Medical Discovery News. I’m Dr Norbert Herzog.
And I’m Dr. David Niesel
When a man died of a drug overdose in Colorado, it took time to figure out which drug. Because it wasn’t fentanyl but another opioid called nitazene.
Even though nitazenes have been around for decades, they haven’t been widely used. But amid a raging opioid epidemic and a national crackdown on fentanyl, nitazenes may become more common.
Nitazenes were developed in the nineteen fifties and sixties and were meant to be a substitute for morphine. But they were so powerful that the FDA didn’t approve it. Now they’re a schedule one drug and illegal just like heroin and LSD.
Nitazines are made in the lab and are inexpensive to produce. They block pain signals in the brain by binding to opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and other sites in the body.
Depending on the chemical formulation, some nitazenes are eight hundred times more potent than morphine and forty times more than even fentanyl!
They come in liquids, pills, and powder form. And just as illegal street drugs can be laced with fentanyl, they can also contain nitazenes without the user knowing.
According to the CDC, a record ninety-two thousand people died of drug overdose in two thousand twenty and nearly two-thirds were from synthetic opioids, mostly from fentanyl.
Up to two thousand people may have died from nitazene since two thousand nineteen. The concern is that number will grow unless people are educated about the dangers they pose.
We are Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog, at UTMB and Quinnipiac University, where biomedical discoveries shape the future of medicine. For much more and our disclaimer go to medicaldiscoverynews.com or subscribe to our podcast. Sign up for expanded print episodes at www.illuminascicom.com
