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Tuesday, October 29, 2002Senior Bush administration officials said their suspicions were still tentative, but they said it was possible the gas used in the raid was an aerosol version of a powerful, fast-acting opiate called Fentanyl. In interviews Monday, senior American authorities and private experts said the agent used by the Russians was probably similar to one of a small arsenal of nonlethal weapons that the United States is quietly studying for use by soldiers and police officers against terrorists. Several scientists said the United States had conducted research on Fentanyl, a well-known drug with many medical applications, as a human incapacitant for nearly a decade. One senior law enforcement official said the use of an incapacitating agent to free hostages was unprecedented. ``I'm aware of no hostage situation anywhere in the world where such an agent has been used,'' the official said. But a senior administration official said that if the drug used in the incident was Fentanyl, that would probably not constitute a violation of a 1997 treaty banning the use of lethal chemical weapons. Fentanyl comes in all sorts of forms - a patch, an aerosol, a liquid, and an oral form. It's even available as a lollipop for kids . It's as good a candidate as any for the Russian gas. UPDATE: Best of the Web Today says that their physician friend doubts fentanyl is the gas because it's a solid and because it can be reversed by a drug called Narcan that binds to the same receptors and blocks the narcotics’ action. Fentanyl isn't just available as a solid. It's also an injectable liquid, and it's a drug that can be absorbed through the thin lining of the oral cavity. It wouldn't be such a stretch to develop an aerosolized version that would be absorbed through the lining of the respiratory passages as it was inhaled. As to the Narcan issue, Narcan can reverse opiates, but it's generally much shorter-acting than the opiates it reverses. If given a massive overdose, such as would be likely in a gassing situation, it would take repeated injections of it at large dosages to keep the drugs reversed. In addition, it doesn't reverse damage already done. When a narcotic suppresses respirations and puts people to sleep, the oxygen going to their vital organs is decreased and damage occurs. According to Goodman & Gilman's, the bible of pharmacology, fentanyl has a long half-life and has a tendency to build up in the tissues. It took a while to get the hostages to the hospitals, during which the gas would have done its damage to the heart, the lung, the kidneys, and the brain. Narcan wouldn’t be the same easy solution it would be for someone who just sucked a few too many fentanyl lollipops and was excessively sleepy. UPDATE II: Derek Lowe has some reflections on the mystery gas. posted by Sydney on 10/29/2002 08:05:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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