XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Tuesday 1 June 2010

Contaminated Cocaine Can Cause Flesh to Rot - you should be aware that some of the cocaine is not clean -

Contaminated Cocaine Can Cause Flesh to Rot -  you should be aware that some of the cocaine is not clean - 






 Cocaine abusers -- already at risk for an abnormal heartbeat, blood pressure problems, hallucinations, convulsions and stroke -- can add another potential health complication to the list: rotting flesh.
"If you are a user of cocaine, you should be aware that some of the cocaine is not clean and can have other agents that can cause you to have a low white-cell count or skin tissue death," said Dr. Ghinwa Dumyati, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester and an epidemiologist for the Monroe County Health Department in New York.
In a report in the June 1 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, Dumyati and doctors from the University of Rochester Medical Center discuss two cases involving women with a history of cocaine use who came to the hospital for help when they noticed purplish plaques on their cheeks, earlobes, legs, thighs and buttocks.
Their profiles were typical of toxicity with levamisole, the doctors reported. The medication is a veterinary anti-worming agent, approved for use in cattle, sheep and pigs. It was once used to treat cancer, autoimmune diseases and kidney problems in humans, Dumyati said. It's no longer approved for use in people in the United States, she said, because of adverse side effects.
But it's often used to cut cocaine, before distribution to the user, she said. "Almost 80 percent of the cocaine coming into this country has levamisole mixed in," Dumyati said.
Exactly why is not known, she said. Some say it might enhance the effects of the drug, which include a euphoric mood or ''high" and a boost in energy. It also might be used to stretch the drug and increase profits.
"The person using cocaine would not know this [levamisole] is in it," Dumyati said.
In the new report, the doctors concluded, based on the women's symptoms, that cocaine laced with levamisole cannot only cause problems with white blood cells -- a problem previously reported -- but also death of the skin's outer layer. They said that physicians should suspect cocaine abuse when they see patients with skin lesions caused by tissue death.
"The drug may induce an immunological reaction producing inflammation or vasculitis, an inflammation inside the small blood vessels," Dumyati said in explaining the link to tissue death. "The result can be the death of the epidermis or outer layer of skin."
But that's not all that's bad about levamisole. "It has other side effects," she said. "It has effects on bone marrow function. There can be a drop in the white blood cell count."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in late 2009 on a cluster of cases of problems with white blood cell counts linked to cocaine use. Called agranulocytosis, the condition occurs when bone marrow fails to make enough white blood cells.
The report noted that levamisole was found in some of the people with agranulocytosis and cocaine exposure.
But the reports of tissue death associated with contaminated cocaine are newer, said Dr. Kurt Nolte, a pathology professor at the University of New Mexico and one of the authors of the CDC report. "Tissue death has been associated with levamisole in a clinical context," when the drug was used therapeutically, he said. "I've not seen any cocaine users with this."
But it's not a surprise, given the amount of cocaine that has been laced with the medication, said Dr. Juliet VanEenwyk, an epidemiologist with the Washington State Department of Health, who also contributed information to the CDC report.
"The increase [in cocaine containing levamisole] has been really rapid," she said. Until a few years ago, she said, probably less than 10 percent of cocaine supplies had it. Now, experts suspect that 80 percent do.
Dumyati said that the skin problem is treatable, but "if you stop using cocaine, most of the cases would get better."
Agranulocytosis, on the other hand, is a serious illness that requires hospitalization for treatment, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
More information

When good URLs go bad - The book of slurls: unintentionally funny websites - the world’s worst Internet URLs -

When good URLs go bad - The book of slurls: unintentionally funny websites - the world’s worst Internet URLs -






The people at choosespain.com, the travel agency, are resigned to their double entendre name and the swimming pool company poolife.com isn’t about to throw in the towel.
Software programmer Andy Geldman, 35, has collected the best of the unintentionally funny URLs in a new book called Slurls: They Called Their Website What?, with the subtitle: The world’s worst Internet URLs.
“Lots of them are rude,” he says apologetically to the Star on Tuesday.
The dog grooming company in Warwickshire, England answers to www.doggiestyles.co.uk, for example. “Apparently, she didn’t realize.” And like most exposed by Geldman in his slurls blog, the company isn’t going to change, even though doggiestyle.co.uk is not at all about pets.
Houseofart.com didn’t make his stringent requirements (English, active, double meaning and not deliberate) but the show business agency whorepresents.com did. Among his favourites: the simple oh.no, which is the Norwegian holiday resort Osnes Hyttepark.
Among the ones that puzzle him the most: the domain name adopted by the tiny Cook Islands (you can look it up). “I mean, they didn’t have to. There can’t be that many businesses in the Cook Islands.”
Geldman swears effoff.com, the U.S. furniture company Effective Office Environments, was blissfully unaware of the British slang in the name and so makes the cut. And therapistfinder.com, a California counsellors’directory, embodies exactly what he finds funniest and most interesting: a perfectly sensible name that just happens to mean something else entirely without the capitals and the spaces.
A boring morning commute in 2006 to central London led to the creation of the blog, Geldman says. The book, officially released on Friday, was his attempt to “make something more of it.”
His stab at international URL humour falls short, he admits, when it comes to Canada. The book carries funny site names from Norway, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand — but none from Canada.
“Maybe you’re immune,” he muses. Then he offers a challenge: “The first person to find a Canadian slurl can have a free, signed copy of the book.”

Google Inc is phasing out internal use of rival Microsoft Corp's Windows operating system because of security concerns -

Google Inc is phasing out internal use of rival Microsoft Corp's Windows operating system because of security concerns - 






Citing several Google employees, the FT said the decision to move to other operating systems including Apple Inc's Mac OS and open-source Linux began in earnest in January after Google's Chinese operations were hacked.
Internet security firm McAfee Inc said at the time the cyber attacks on Google and other businesses had exploited a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, which was vulnerable on all recent versions of Windows.
The FT quoted one Google employee as saying: "We're not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort." Another said: "Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO (chief information officer) approval."
Google said in a statement: "We're always working to improve the efficiency of our business, but we do not comment on specific operational matters."
Google, which already offers e-mail, Web and other software products that compete with Microsoft's offerings, is developing its own operating system based on its Chrome browser. It will initially target netbooks, or inexpensive, pared-down notebook PCs.
Microsoft Windows runs about nine out of 10 of the world's personal computers.