New York
CNN
—
The body-cam footage is harrowing.
A Florida police officer, who had found what she believed to be fentanyl throughout a routine visitors cease final week, is seen mendacity on the bottom and struggling to breathe. After a fellow officer administers remedy that’s used to counteract the consequences of opioids, paramedics arrive and rush the unwell officer to a neighborhood hospital the place she in the end makes a restoration.
It’s one in every of many incidents that has popped up across the nation during which first responders imagine they’ve overdosed on fentanyl after transient publicity to the drug. In these incidents, like this one, media shops typically publish tales repeating the police narrative that the primary responder almost died after transient contact with the opioid.
A model of this text first appeared within the “Dependable Sources” e-newsletter. Join the each day digest chronicling the evolving media panorama right here.
“FLORIDA OFFICER COLLAPSES AFTER FENTANYL EXPOSURE,” a chyron on the right-wing cable channel Fox Information blared on this explicit case. Within the New York Submit, a headline thundered, “Florida cop who OD’d after fentanyl publicity ‘couldn’t breathe.’”
However information organizations repeating the stories with out scrutiny are fueling a stigma concerning the second-hand risks of the drug, doubtlessly harming or delaying assist for these in want of rapid help and making a suggestions loop for anxious first responders.
“It’s extraordinarily unlikely that regulation enforcement officers or different first responders will expertise an overdose after transient, unintentional publicity whereas caring for people who used opioids,” mentioned Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency doctor and CNN medical analyst.
Wen defined that opioids “will not be well-absorbed by way of the pores and skin besides by way of extended publicity” and, outdoors biowarfare conditions, are “not aerosolized and inhaled by way of the air.”
Information additionally means that first responders featured in such tales have possible not suffered a fentanyl overdose. A 2021 analysis paper revealed within the Worldwide Journal of Drug Coverage mentioned the signs described in tons of of accounts of first responders who reportedly overdosed on opioids are inclined to match the signs of panic or anxiousness assaults, somewhat than these related to fentanyl overdoses. And, critically, it discovered there are not any confirmed circumstances of an officer having an overdose after touching fentanyl.
When some native shops in Florida later tried to query the police narrative concerning the purported officer overdose, together with proof of the drug’s presence, they have been met with resistance. “No paperwork or proof could be shared till the case is closed,” together with the officer’s medical data, the division mentioned.
Regardless of the proof being withheld from the general public, Wen mentioned it’s unlikely that fentanyl was the wrongdoer.
“Studies involving first responders who sought medical care following publicity usually didn’t discover opioids of their system,” Wen mentioned. “A lot of the time, their signs have been in line with panic assaults (i.e. shortness of breath manifesting as gasping for breath–versus opioid overdose ends in lack of consciousness that then depresses respiration).”
And whereas tales that push this narrative may appear innocent, the results could be very actual.
“There’s a hazard to media accounts with unsubstantiated claims of first responders overdosing after transient, unintended publicity,” Wen instructed me. “It might dissuade individuals from helping these in want.”
