Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Two-thirds of cocaine smuggled into the U.S. is laced with a cattle-worming drug linked to a rare immune disorder in a rash of cases, a report says.
The veterinary drug, levamisole, was connected to new cases of the immune disorder agranulocytosis in Canada a year ago. Now public health officials in New Mexico and Washington blame tainted cocaine for a cluster of unexplained cases, including one death, in those states, according to a weekly mortality report put out by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reported that as of July 2009, 69 percent of cocaine seized at U.S. borders contained levamisole. This is more than double the rate in September 2008. Levamisole, an antibiotic, is mainly used to wipe out parasitic worms in cattle, pigs, and other farm animals.
In the immune disorder agranulocytosis, the bone marrow produces too few white blood cells to ward off infection, according to the National Institutes of Health, U.S. agency. This causes symptoms that include high fever and persistent bacterial infections of the skin, lungs, and other organs. It can be fatal in as many as 10 percent of cases.
This report hints at a much larger problem, the editorial note says, as the 21 cases it describes “might represent a small portion of all agranulocytosis cases associated with cocaine” in the U.S. That’s because patients might be reluctant to disclose their cocaine habits to doctors or even seek health care, it says. The CDC has begun a national surveillance program to monitor the problem.
