Krokodil paper retracted from Am J Med

[arctica]

reported here: http://dosemakespoison.blogspot.com/2013/12/krokodilnot-so-fast-my-friends.html

and here: http://retractionwatch.com/2013/12/02/drug-withdrawal-st-louis-krokodil-paper-disappears/

The retraction notice says:

The article has been temporarily removed because of a permission problem that the originating institution is working to resolve.

However, the first link points out some rather large flaws in the original work, and implies that it's bogus FUD.

If anyone has a way to view the original article, I'd like to have a look, but I can't seem to bludgeon their website into giving me a copy.

 

[electrodevo]

This looks like it's the PDF.

And it is pretty crappy to be honest.

It's one case report of someone who suffered some nasty problems. Unfortunately, to me, the case report description read "krokodil" but to me, that's too hasty of a conclusion. To me, I would think severe injection abuse of illegal narcotics, or even crushed prescription drugs, could cause some of the symptoms. No, I do not trust drug users to accurately describe what they are taking.

Krokodil is not likely to be as widespread in the United States as codeine is controlled (in Russia, it is not) and other opiates are much more readily available, for not a very high cost. I also agree with the blog you linked to that a Time reference is bogus (what next, a medical journal entry with citations from Buzzfeed and Cracked?) and care should be taken to point out that it is the toxic byproducts, not desomorphine, that causes the necrosis.

 

[Hammilton]

Next you'll tell me that citing Gawker is inappropriate!

Does anyone actually know that to be true? Is it really the byproducts, and not the desomorphine? I know that the drug was approved or used for a time in a Scandinavian state, but I believe that it was only available as an oral formulation. If it was indeed used intravenously, then that would sort of cement that impression, but I haven't actually seen anything saying that it was used that way.

And if it's not the desomorphine, is it a synthetic byproduct, remnant solvent or something related to the pills they were obtaining the codeine from? You've gotta figure that someone who's got a large prescription for codeine is gonna say, hey, let's quadruple or pentuple or heptuple, whatever it is, the potency of this shit, stretch it out.

I would be concerned that it's not caused by desomorphine, but it's not caused by the obvious things either, I'd be concerned that the alpha-chlorocodide intermediate might be to blame. I don't know what sort of pharmacology it has, but it's the only intermediate involved that I would suspect of being potentially dangerous.

I mean, Occam's razor, right? It's probably the solvent shit, but I'd still be careful about ruling the other potential causes out.

Oh yeah, aweful paper.

 

[arctica]

This looks like it's the PDF.

And it is pretty crappy to be honest.

It's one case report of someone who suffered some nasty problems. Unfortunately, to me, the case report description read "krokodil" but to me, that's too hasty of a conclusion. To me, I would think severe injection abuse of illegal narcotics, or even crushed prescription drugs, could cause some of the symptoms. No, I do not trust drug users to accurately describe what they are taking.

Krokodil is not likely to be as widespread in the United States as codeine is controlled (in Russia, it is not) and other opiates are much more readily available, for not a very high cost. I also agree with the blog you linked to that a Time reference is bogus (what next, a medical journal entry with citations from Buzzfeed and Cracked?) and care should be taken to point out that it is the toxic byproducts, not desomorphine, that causes the necrosis.

Thanks for tracking down a copy! Yeah, I'm flummoxed as to how this one got through the review process, but I'll be interested to hear how this pans out. I can't imagine that this is a temporary retraction unless the authors are doing a complete rewrite.

 

[clubcard]

I think a similar report was made CC a case in the UK. Seems most unlikely that you would discover a single case. The scene in Russia is heart-breaking (and don't think that the control on codeine makes much difference). It seems a lot of these 'new' (I mean back from Soviet control) countries are having problems. Anyone noted the fentanyl epidemic in Estonia?

 

[Hammilton]

I wouldn't be too surprised if it appeared in England, being that you have otc codeine.

 

[clubcard]

But not OTC RP.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

If someone decides to get down to it, then phosphate salts could serve as the precursor for white, and thence red P. I made a small sample of WP as a just about borderline teenager (borderline on the younger side of hitting teens that is), and whilst I never attempted to make the red allotrope from scratch, doable enough if people put their minds to it. Not that at the time I was seeking to make meth, or desomorphine, hadn't heard of the latter at the time, I was more interested in the highly varied allotropic forms, and of course (go figure), its pyrophoricity and glow.

And of course, there are always matchboxes, although most now are those dot-matrix pattern striker strips which contain far less recoverable P than any of them used to (did that playing about too, and got a bastard of a burn I won't soon forget purifying it..christ...they aren't kidding when they say WP is evil stuff to rain down on civillian populations courtesy of the military.)

Although at least its likely to mean taking out any for-profit 'meth cook' types from starting down the fire and brimstone kind of backyards route to getting their P (more than once, that is). Although some bright spark is sure to try other phosphous...things...as was done with meth.

Not that DIYing thionyl chloride is all that much friendlier. Once you HAVE some, perhaps, but not if it has to be put together from scratch by those who do not know what its used in.

Lifespan of a krokodil addict just went from a year to about a week trying