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Cocaine abusers face rotting skin due to dangerous ingredient levamisole

Escrito por The New York Daily News Viernes 04 de Junio de 2010 15:06

American cigarettes more cancerous than foreign brands: studyHow did Bret Michaels, Gary Coleman's brain hemorrhages differ?British woman's 20-day labor may be longest everProtect your ankles against sprains this summerTo the host of potential health problems cocaine abusers face, add one more: 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 cause you to have a low white-cell count or skin tissue death,” Dr. Ghinwa Dumyati, associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester and a Monroe County Health Department epidemiologist, told HealthDay News.

Dumyati and his colleagues described the ailments of two chronic cocaine users who went to the hospital after noticing purplish plaque on various parts of their body. The women’s symptoms, reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, were consistent with levamisole toxicity.

Levamisole is a veterinary medicine approved for use in deworming farm animals and was once used to treat cancer in humans. Though it’s no longer legal to use in humans because of its serious side effects, it is frequently - and illegally - used to cut cocaine.

“Almost 80 percent of the cocaine coming into this country has levamisole mixed in,” Dumyati said. “The person using cocaine would not know this [levamisole] is in it.”

Besides causing white blood-cell problems, cocaine laced with this substance can cause the skin's outer layer to die, leading to skin lesions. While the skin problem is treatable, the white blood-cell problem can result in agranulocytosis, a serious ailment that requires hospitalization for treatment.

Skin rotting is not the only disorder cocaine users expose themselves to. They’re also at risk for an abnormal heartbeat, blood pressure problems, hallucinations, convulsions and stroke.