Well, ok not really completely ban, just regulate. This week there was a suggestion that the amount of caffeine put into energy drinks may be harmful or deadly to younger caffeine drinker. Is this justified or an overreaction? A group of Amercian experts (medics, scientists and public health…
Tag: toxicology
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Hair testing for sport and social drugs
Following the tragic death of the cricketer Tom Maynard there has been a recommendation that hair testing should be carried out on sportsmen and women to enable the detection of drug use. Is this feasible and what are the benefits? A young man on a night out takes…
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Ricin – the castor bean poison
Watching Breaking Bad last night ‘Heisenberg’ proposed extracting a castor bean and poisoning the crazy drug dealing ‘Tuco’. Is this real and what is the science behind it? What was the James Bond style killing they talked about? Breaking Bad is my new box set of choice, as suggested…
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DMAA linked to marathon runners death
Dimethylamylamine was reported to have been found in the blood of a runner who died in the London Marathon last year. At inquest it was found to be a contributing factor in her death. What is it and how may it have contributed to death? The stimulant 4-methyl-2-hexaneamine (1,3-dimethylamylamine, DMAA) was listed on…
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Forensic toxicology and carbon monoxide poisoning
Carbon monoxide is often called a ‘silent killer’, a gas without smell or taste than can accumulate in the blood and cause death. It is an often encountered poison in forensic toxicology. This week a Coroner for Shropshire, UK, recorded a verdict of accidental death in the case of a girl…
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Lance given the key to the EPO test
Was Lance Armstrong told how to beat the EPO urine test by the Swiss laboratory director? Of all the stories to have come out of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) investigation this is the first involving what could be impropriety from a scientist. It was alleged this week that Lance…
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Methamphetamine lab children – exposed to drug fumes
In New Zealand there is a big methamphetamine problem. In the years from 2000 to 2009 the number of clandestine laboratories found and raided by Police increased from 9 to 135. In a third of these cases there are either children present when raided or who live at that…
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Drugs in hair – a brief intro
Much of my research has been on the detection of drugs of abuse in hair samples. My most recent paper in this area focused on children who had been living in drug factories (that’s another story!). This originally appeared on the site www.fortox.org early 2012. Of all the common biological matrices for…