Beyond the cocaine shark, here comes the fentanyl dolphin…
Traces of fentanyl have been detected in the bodies of an alarming number of bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, shocking scientists in a frightening turn in the drug epidemic.
Traces of the powerful synthetic opioid were first discovered in the body of a dead dolphin floating in Gulf waters when it was tested by researchers at Texas A&M Corpus Christi in September 2020.
What was supposed to be a routine analysis of fat turned into years of research, with more than a third of the dolphins testing positive for drugs.
“That wasn't what we were looking for, so we were naturally surprised to find something like fentanyl, especially with the current fentanyl crisis going on around the world,” said the Ph.D. Student Makayla Guinn I said to Chris.
“These drugs and pharmaceuticals are entering our waters and are having cascading effects on our marine life.”
Guinn's team, with support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Texas Parks, and Wildlife and Precision Toxicology Consultants, dug deeper to find out how much fentanyl had infected the dolphins.
The study involved sampling the blubber of 89 dolphins, which typically contained more than 3,000 different compounds, including some pharmaceuticals such as sedatives and relaxants, the paper said. reported.
Six of the tests were on dead dolphins, and the remaining 83 were biopsies taken from live dolphins.
The report said fentanyl was detected at more than 20% in samples from 18 dolphins, including fat from all six dead mammals. the study.
One-third of those tested had some form of man-made drugs in their systems, and others tested positive for the skeletal relaxant carisoprodol and the anxiety drug meprobamate.
Fentanyl is 100 times more powerful than morphine, and one kilogram of the deadly drug is enough to kill 500,000 people. Drug Enforcement Agency.
Researchers have not yet concluded where the drugs came from, as authorities have not ruled out several possibilities.
“It's possible, but not the only possibility, that drugs could come from the wastewater,” marine biologist Dr. Dara Auerbach told the magazine.
“Perhaps they're getting these medicines into their bodies by eating the prey they eat, which is also important given that the Coastal Bend is a very important local fishing community. It's the same fish and shrimp.
This discovery could lead to a breakthrough in discovering the source of drugs, but the long time periods between samples can make it a difficult task.
“Some of these samples we looked at were over 10 years old, and they also had pharmaceuticals in those animals. So this is a long-standing problem that no one is paying attention to. That's what we think,” Orbach said.
