Consensus $2.59.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Brain injury diagnosed with a single drop of blood
Every year in Europe, three million people are admitted into hospitals for suspected mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) cases. Yet 90% of these patients will be able to return home safely, as no trauma has been detected. Today, the only reliable diagnosis is the CT Scan, which is only available in some hospitals and, in addition to being expensive, exposes patients to radiation. Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with the Hospitals of Barcelona, Madrid and Seville, have developed a small device — Point-of-Care Test (POCT) — that analyses the level of proteins in the blood and allows, using a single drop of blood, to diagnose the possibility of a mild traumatic brain injury. This discovery, described in PLOS ONE, will not only relieve emergency departments, free patients from often long waits, but also save on costly medical examinations.
Falling whilst skiing, tumbling down the stairs or getting hit on the head can cause symptoms such as blurred vision, vomiting, loss of consciousness or memory for about 30 minutes. There is then a risk of mild cerebral trauma, which represents more than 90% of brain injuries admitted to hospitals. But is there really a brain lesion? Or are these symptoms merely the consequence of the violence of the shock, of which will ultimately only leave a bump behind?
Today, the injured patients have to go to the emergency rooms of hospitals equipped with a CT Scan, an expensive examination that sends X-rays to the brain to detect the presence or absence of brain trauma. As their case is not a priority, it often takes a long time for the majority of patients to return home without risk of sequelae, except for bad memories.
Find biomarkers for light traumas
“We wondered if it was possible to isolate certain proteins whose presence in the blood increases in the event of mild traumatic brain injury,” explains Jean-Charles Sanchez, professor at the Department of Internal Medicine of Specialties and the Biomarkers Centre of the Faculty of Medicine of the UNIGE. “Our idea was to find a way to do a quick examination that would allow, during a boxing or American football match for example, to determine whether the athlete can return to the field or if his condition requires hospitalization. The opposite of the CT Scan, an exam that lasts a long time and cannot be done anywhere,” he adds.
During a shock on the head, some brain cells are damaged and release the proteins they contain, increasing their level in the blood. Scientists at UNIGE and Spanish hospitals then compared the blood of patients admitted for mild traumatic brain injury but diagnosed as negative with that of patients actually suffering from a brain lesion. Using proteomic analyses, which can quantify thousands of proteins simultaneously and observe variations in their levels in the blood, they gradually isolated four molecules indicating the presence of a brain injury: H-FABP, Interleukin-10, S100B and GFAP. “We have noticed that the H-FABP level alone makes it possible to confirm that there is no risk of trauma in one third of patients admitted after a shock,” enthuses Jean-Charles Sanchez. The rest of the patients will have to undergo a CT scan to confirm the diagnosis.
TBIcheck, the light brain trauma detector
It was still necessary to develop a device that could be used everywhere, quickly and simply, and that could be available in pharmacies or sports halls. “When a person has an accident in the mountain, few practices can do a CT Scan,” notes the Geneva researcher. His team has developed a rapid diagnostic test (POCT) called TBIcheck, inspired by the principle of pregnancy testing: by placing a single drop of blood on the well of a small 5cm plastic case, the patient knows within 10 minutes whether there is a risk of mild trauma, namely whether or not his H-FABP level is higher than 2.5 nanograms per millilitre of blood. “If a lane appears, the injured person must go to a hospital for a CT scan, if there is nothing, he can go home safely!” Jean-Charles Sanchez says. In case of doubt when reading the result, a small reader, the Cube Reader, can be installed on TBIcheck. It will display the word “positive” or “negative” and send the result to the patient’s or caregiver’s smartphone via Bluetooth. No more doubts!
Commercialization planned for beginning 2019
These results, patented by UNIGE and awarded the Prix de l’Innovation Academy in December 2017, will be marketed from 2019 by ABCDx, a start-up founded four years ago by Jean-Charles Sanchez of UNIGE and Joan Montaner of Vall d’Hebron Hospital in Barcelona, co-authors of this study. “Today, our research shows that the results are even more accurate when we combine H-FABP and GFAP levels,” continues Jean-Charles Sanchez. “We are currently preparing an even more effective TBIcheck, which will allow 50% of patients to be sent home, but which requires an increase in the sensitivity of the test that receives the blood.” ABCDx’s ultimate goal is to bring to market biomarkers capable of diagnosing brain trauma, stroke and aneurysms. “Biomarkers are a mine of information on patients’ state of health, it is up to us to decode them,” concludes the Geneva researcher.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Université de Genève. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Linnéa Lagerstedt, Juan José Egea-Guerrero, Alejandro Bustamante, Ana Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Amir El Rahal, Manuel Quintana-Diaz, Roser García-Armengol, Carmen Melinda Prica, Elisabeth Andereggen, Lara Rinaldi, Asita Sarrafzadeh, Karl Schaller, Joan Montaner, Jean-Charles Sanchez. Combining H-FABP and GFAP increases the capacity to differentiate between CT-positive and CT-negative patients with mild traumatic brain injury. PLOS ONE, 2018; 13 (7): e0200394 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200394
Experimental drug reverses hair loss and skin damage linked to fatty diet
In a series of experiments with mice, Johns Hopkins investigators have used an experimental compound to successfully reverse hair loss, hair whitening and skin inflammation linked by previous studies to human diets heavy in fat and cholesterol.
The investigators say the compound halts the production of certain fats called glycosphingolipids, or GSLs, that are major components of skin and other cell membranes. Current research shows that mice fed a diet high in fat and cholesterol are more likely to have hair discoloration from black to gray to white, extensive hair loss and inflammation of skin exhibited by multiple wounds. Feeding these animals the compound, however, appears to reverse such symptoms.
The Hopkins investigators caution that such results in mice do not mean that the same effects would occur in people, and there is no evidence at this time that the compounds they used would be safe in people. But the findings, they say, do shed light on possible pathways for addressing hair loss and skin wounds in humans with oral or topical medications.
A report on the findings was published July 30 in Scientific Reports.
“Further research is needed, but our findings show promise for someday using the drug we developed for skin diseases such as psoriasis, and wounds resulting from diabetes or plastic surgery,” says Subroto Chatterjee, Ph.D., M.S., M.Sc., professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Chatterjee conducts research as part of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
More specifically, previous studies showed that GSLs are prevalent in the cells that make up the uppermost layer of the skin, as well as in cells called keratinocytes that help regulate pigmentation of the eyes, skin and hair.
To determine how disrupting GSLs might affect skin appearance and color, and whether treatment with D-threo-1-phenyl-2-decanoylamino-3-morpholino-1-propanol (D-PDMP) — a human-made compound that halts GSL production — would reverse any negative effects, Chatterjee and his colleagues first genetically modified a group of mice to have atherosclerosis, a disease in which arteries are clogged by fat deposits.
The researchers then fed one group of these mice a Western diet high in fat and cholesterol, and a second group standard chow. All mice were fed their assigned diets from 12 weeks of age to 20 weeks.
Compared to those fed standard chow, the mice that ate a Western diet lost hair, formed skin lesions and suffered from hair whitening. These results became more severe when the mice continued eating a Western diet for 36 weeks, with 75 percent of the mice having skin, hair loss and multiple skin lesions.
From 20 to 36 weeks of age, mice in both groups were given varying amounts of D-PDMP, either in a capsule or as a liquid, while they ate the same diet. Mice that received 1 milligram and 10 milligrams of D-PDMP in a capsule per kilogram of body weight from 20 to 36 weeks while eating a Western diet started regaining hair and hair color, and their skin inflammation lessened. Treatment with 1 milligram of D-PDMP in a capsule per kilogram of body weight was as effective as 10 milligrams per kilogram as a liquid. This suggests that an encapsulated form of D-PDMP is a better method of drug delivery.
The research team then looked at the skin of the mice’s under a microscope and found that mice eating the Western diet experienced an infiltration of neutrophils, a type of white blood cell implicated in inflammation, in various skin areas. Treatment with D-PDMP in a capsule significantly reduced the number of neutrophils, implying reduced skin inflammation and wounding.
Next, the researchers used mass spectrometry analysis, a method of identifying and quantifying the chemical composition of a mixture, to determine ceramide, glucosylceramide and lactosylceramide levels in the mice. Ceramides are a type of lipid, or fat, that helps protect the skin’s moisture, and glucosylceramide is the first derivative of ceramide, whereas lactosylceramide, a later derivative of ceramide, activates inflammation.
Compared to mice fed normal chow, those fed a Western diet had decreased total ceramide levels, decreased glucosylceramide and nearly three times more lactosylceramide. Treatment with 1 milligram of D-PDMP in a capsule per kilogram of body weight or 10 milligrams of D-PDMP as a liquid per kilogram of body weight, however, noticeably increased ceramide levels to normal.
“Our findings show that a Western diet causes hair loss, hair whitening and skin inflammation in mice, and we believe a similar process occurs in men who lose hair and experience hair whitening when they eat a diet high in fat and cholesterol,” says Chatterjee.
More animal research needs to be done to confirm and expand on the findings, and to determine how well and what amount of D-PDMP might heal wounds and activate hair growth.
“Hopefully someday in the future this can mean faster, more effective recovery from baldness, hair whitening in aging populations and wound healing,” says Chatterjee.
Other authors on this paper include Djahida Bedja, Wenwen Yan, Dominica Iocca, Veera Ratnam Bandaru and Nickesh Ramakrishnan of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Wenwen Yan of Tongji University.
This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (PO1HL10715301).
Story Source:
Materials provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Djahida Bedja, Wenwen Yan, Viren Lad, Domenica Iocco, Nickash Sivakumar, Veera Venkata Ratnam Bandaru, Subroto Chatterjee. Inhibition of glycosphingolipid synthesis reverses skin inflammation and hair loss in ApoE−/− mice fed western diet. Scientific Reports, 2018; 8 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-28663-9
Young Cancer Survivors Have High Risk of Endocrine Diseases
Adolescent and young adult cancer survivors have a 73 percent higher risk of endocrine diseases, according to a study published online June 29 in JAMA Network Open.
Mette Vestergaard Jensen, M.D., from the Danish Cancer Society Research Center in Copenhagen, and colleagues used the Danish Cancer Registry to investigate the lifetime risks of endocrine late effects of cancer and cancer treatment in 32,548 adolescent and young adult cancer survivors (1976 through 2009). Patients were matched by age and sex to a reference cohort randomly selected from the Danish Civil Registration system, and analyses were done from July 2015 through February 2018.
The researchers found that 6.5 percent of survivors had at least one hospital contact for an endocrine disease, compared to the 3.8 percent that were expected (rate ratio [RR], 1.73). The RRs were highest for testicular hypofunction (75.12), ovarian hypofunction (14.65), and pituitary hypofunction (11.14). Thyroid disease (absolute excess risk [AER], 38.0 percent), testicular dysfunction (AER, 17.1 percent), and diabetes (AER, 14.4 percent) were the leading reasons for hospital contacts. Risk of any endocrine disease was highest among leukemia survivors (RR, 3.97), and Hodgkin lymphoma survivors had the highest disease-specific excess risk for hypothyroidism (AER, 362 per 100 000 person-years).
“The increased risk for endocrine diseases in adolescent and young adult cancer survivors indicates the need for counseling and follow-up, and could guide future preventive measures and surveillance strategies,” the authors write.
What to watch in Pfizer earnings report
Pfizer (PFE) is scheduled to report results of its second fiscal quarter before the market open on July 31, with a conference call scheduled for 10:00 am EDT. What to watch for 1. 2018 GUIDANCE: Along with its first quarter financial report in early May, the drug giant gave its view for FY18. Pfizer backed its FY18 adjusted EPS view of $2.90-$3.00 on revenue of $53.5B-$55.5B. Analysts are currently expecting FY18 EPS of $2.95 on revenue of $54.29B. Pfizer said Innovative Health revenues increased 3% operationally in 1Q18, primarily driven by continued growth from key brands including Ibrance, Eliquis and Xeljanz. Global operational revenue growth for Ibrance, Eliquis and Xeljanz was 35%, 30% and 29%, respectively. Q1 Innovative Health operational revenue growth was negatively impacted primarily by the loss of exclusivity of Viagra in the U.S. in December 2017 and the resulting shift in the reporting of U.S. and Canada Viagra revenues to the Essential Health business at the beginning of 2018. Innovative Health operational revenue growth was also negatively impacted by lower revenues for Enbrel in most developed Europe markets due to continued biosimilar competition. In the U.S., revenue for Ibrance, Xeljanz, and certain other products was negatively impacted by customer buying patterns. 2. SPLIT OFF THE TABLE: Pfizer said it was “taking a split off the table for the foreseeable future” while speaking on its quarterly conference call in early May. The drug giant added that it has not received an “acceptable offer” for the sale of its Consumer Healthcare business. The company said, “We never say never to anything, but right now, for the foreseeable future, we’re all about executing on our business.” Pfizer said it will continue to manage the Consumer Healthcare unit as it explores other alternatives, which may include “everything from a full or partial separation of the business to ultimately deciding to retain the business.” Pfizer expects to make a decision in 2018. 3. REORGANIZATION: On July 11, Pfizer announced it will organize the company into three businesses: a science-based Innovative Medicines business, which will now include biosimilars and a new hospital business unit for anti-infectives and sterile injectables; an off-patent branded and generic Established Medicines business operating with substantial autonomy within Pfizer and a Consumer Healthcare business. After Pfizer’s reorganization announcement, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said that the move may eventually lead to a spin-off of the company’s health-care business. Cramer reminded investors that “Pfizer had already spun off its animal health business Zoetis (ZTS) in 2013.” 4. PRICE ROLLBACK: Pfizer confirmed it was rolling back its July drug price increases following a conversation with President Trump. In a statement provided to CNBC’s Meg Tirrell on July 10, Pfizer said it will roll back its July 1 price increases “to give the president an opportunity to work on his blueprint to strengthen the healthcare system and provide more access for patients.” The company released the statement following an “extensive discussion” with President Trump. Pfizer said it will return such prices to their pre-July 1 levels as soon as technically possible, and the prices will remain in effect until the earlier of when the president’s blueprint goes into effect or the end of the year.
Zogenix price target raised to $66 from $56 at Empire
Empire analyst Dr. Cathy Reese raised Buy rated Zogenix’s price target to $66 from $56 citing a reduction in clinical development risk following Fintepla’s second confirmatory Phase III study. Reese said this was the final large Fintepla clinical hurdle that needed to be cleared so Zogenix could file its U.S. and E.U. submissions for this drug to be considered as a therapy for Dravet syndrome patients.
Opioid Crisis Turns Buildings To Hazmat Zones No One Knows What To Do About
Imagine this: a custodial crew walks into a hotel room or an office bathroom to find the victim of a drug overdose dead on the floor. Hours later, a custodian passes out, and someone who used that hotel room or office bathroom is experiencing breathing problems. If they don’t get medical attention soon, they might die, too.
That scene is playing out more frequently, in places from New England to Canada to California — a threat few, if any, are prepared to face.
It might seem easy to turn a blind eye to the opioid epidemic, but North American commercial real estate is having to face the latest deadly phase of this public health crisis: fentanyl. Unlike heroin and other opioids, when fentanyl is used a certain way, the drug can linger in the air and make any area a potential death trap for innocent bystanders.
“In the last 10 days, we’ve done fentanyl overdoses at public bathrooms at the supermarket, restaurants, hotels, tire changing places — even one at a library,” 24 Trauma CEO Michael Wiseman said. “Fentanyl definitely doesn’t discriminate. It’s only a matter of time before it goes even further.”
Hazmat-suit-laden cleanup crews are often summoned to douse contaminated areas with a special chemical to neutralize the effects of illicit activities — a grim, increasingly common occurrence across commercial properties in New England. Bisnow has followed companies and business organizations over the last four months as they tackle the fatal ramifications of a narcotic once used to treat pain that has been retooled into one of North America’s deadliest illicit drugs. Bisnow interviewed more than two dozen law enforcement personnel, researchers, business owners and government officials and arrived at one conclusion: When it comes to fentanyl, everyone is at a loss on how to proceed with finding a solution.
“Is there an epidemic? Absolutely,” Calgary, Canada-based MayKen Hazmat Solutions Chief of Operations Dean May said. “The problem is the industry is not prepared for it, and to deal with it adequately requires the right people with the right frame of mind and training.”
24 Trauma and MayKen Hazmat Solutions are the kind of companies an owner never wants to see around its property. In Massachusetts, the opioid epidemic makes their services as much of a necessity for commercial building owners as a good property manager. 24 Trauma has contracts for nearly 80M SF of commercial property within Greater Boston’s Interstate 495 belt and is increasingly fielding calls from other parts of the country. May’s company has grown alongside the rise of fentanyl-related deaths in Western Canada. Fentanyl was found in 80% of illicit drug overdose deaths in the province of British Columbia in the first seven months of 2017, according to the region’s coroner service.
Because there is no regulation — in Canada or the U.S. — on how to properly restore a property contaminated with fentanyl, MayKen Hazmat is working with Alberta Health Services to create its own procedure on how to clean up the deadly drug from properties throughout the region. Courtesy of 24 Trauma 24 Trauma was summoned to clean up this site contaminated with fentanyl.
“It’s definitely not getting better,” May said. “The biggest issue is there’s no legislation for it, no occupational health and safety limits and no guidelines. Everyone is still working to try and develop those.”
There was a 58% increase in fentanyl-related deaths in Alberta from 2016 to 2017 — and a 143% jump in British Columbia over the same time frame — and they can happen anywhere. While MayKen has been called to expected scenes like drug production labs in residential properties, it has also been called to restaurants, supermarkets and even a downtown Alberta office building.
More than 2,000 people died from opioids in Massachusetts in 2017. The epidemic has continued into 2018, with the added threat of fentanyl now being mixed into cocaine. The Lowell, Massachusetts, fire chief issued a warning in March for residents to be alert for overdoses after four people fatally overdosed in a span of 12 hours from what he believed was a mix of heroin-fentanyl and cocaine-fentanyl. The number of cocaine-fentanyl deaths in Connecticut rose 420% since 2015, according to the state’s chief medical examiner.
“We did [a fentanyl cleanup] a few days ago at a nice residential building where a portfolio manager in the city was doing a few lines before he went to work,” Wiseman said. “But he overdosed because [the cocaine] was mixed with fentanyl.”
The U.S. and Canadian governments’ response has been muted, and Massachusetts is the only state in the U.S. pursuing legislation to regulate fentanyl cleanup. Bisnow reached out to health officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and was either deferred to other organizations or told plans for official procedure were in early stages — and not necessarily intended for commercial property owners.
“The [National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health] Hazard Evaluation Program is working with partners, including police departments and healthcare groups, to understand how workers may be exposed and what resources they need to work safely,” NIOSH Health Communication Specialist Stephanie Stevens wrote in an email. “We currently do not have evidence-based guidance for occupations other than law enforcement and healthcare.”
But cleanup is only one part of the opioid epidemic’s multipronged attack on commercial real estate. One of the biggest building booms in Boston history continues to send land prices to record highs and has compressed much of the city’s industrial activity to Newmarket, a neighborhood one stop away from Boston’s busiest rail hub, South Station. The success of developers elsewhere in the city is impossible for Newmarket landowners to ignore. Land in the neighborhood is averaging around $90/SF, including National Development’s and Charles River Realty Investors’ $11.7M acquisition in September of a 3-acre site in the Newmarket Square Development District. Newmarket Business Association Executive Director Sue Sullivan said her organization is working to find ways to combine industrial with other uses to emulate the evolution of industrial neighborhoods like New York City’s Meatpacking District, but Sullivan can’t ignore one issue that plagues her neighborhood daily: opioids. The narcotic has flooded Boston, particularly into an area of Newmarket known as “Methadone Mile.” Thanks to a consolidation of drug treatment centers and homeless shelters from other neighborhoods in the last few decades, Newmarket is now home to a bulk of the region’s methadone clinics and drug treatment centers and is attracting people from out of state. With the recent explosion of the opioid epidemic, Sullivan said drug dealers have descended on the area, preying on those seeking treatment and turning her neighborhood into the hotbed of Greater Boston’s illicit drug activity. Her team observes 150 people each day shooting up and reports as many as 200 discarded needles for the city to pick up on a daily basis.
“Anytime you have this many people who are vulnerable trying to be in recovery in one place, it’s a haven for drug dealers,” she said. “Even the methadone clinics are complaining, saying they want to be elsewhere. It’s like having an alcoholic walk through a bar to get to AA meetings.”
Despite the daily confrontation with addiction, developers and industrial tenants aren’t turned off from Newmarket. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh included the neighborhood in a round of planning initiatives announced in June intended to boost transit-oriented development.
Sullivan said there is a list of investors waiting to buy in the neighborhood, but the biggest issue is the perceived safety threat to the 20,000 workers in the neighborhood who are harassed getting to their jobs. Her organization is searching far and wide for a solution, but everyone appears to be equally at a loss when it comes to tackling opioids.
“How come we’re not getting through to the people who make decisions? It’s not just here,” Sullivan said. “Look at San Francisco. I have my interns looking at every major city, and nobody knows how to deal with this.”
Sullivan invited Bisnow on a recent Wednesday for a tour of Newmarket to show the dichotomy of how business owners in the area are coming face-to-face with one of the country’s most dire public health crises. Over the span of a five-hour visit, well over 50 people were seen passed out in a 10-block radius. Dealers on bicycles were selling drugs in the open, and users weren’t even attempting to shield how they were standing on loading docks openly shooting syringes into their necks. Crowds in several locations grew quickly when dealers would arrive, just blocks away from police tending to other groups. Sidewalks, highway medians, loading docks, parking lots and private properties were strewn with passed-out individuals who appeared to be under the influence of opioids.
“The problem is you ask for police, and there’s just not enough law enforcement,” one business owner said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of city retribution against critics of their neighborhood policy. “I’ve had pictures of police cruisers and 30 people doing drugs right behind it. I’ve also had incidents where the city will come down [on us] because we spoke up. Everyone is too afraid to speak up because you’re going against the city and afraid of retaliation.”
The situation is bleak for the neighborhood’s business community. Having already been pushed out of other areas that attracted developers looking for higher revenue-generating projects, Newmarket business owners feel misled by leaders who promised they wouldn’t notice any change from the arrival of the methadone clinics and drug treatment facilities. Some clinics were pitched as temporary, but with no signs of the drug services moving out and industrial availability in the urban core on the decline, business owners, like the people suffering from addiction outside their front door, feel there’s nowhere else for them to go.
“It’s not that we’re NIMBY,” Sullivan said. “It’s just that we don’t want all of it in our backyard.”
There is no clear-cut solution to the fentanyl problem. Secondhand exposure to fentanyl can cause respiratory problems, clogged blood vessels, a weakened immune system — even death.
“This evolution of fentanyl that’s been going on the last handful of years has brought up the issue of hazards around scenes and vehicles beyond what it ever had been before,” Norwood, Massachusetts, Chief of Police William Brooks said. “Fentanyl is a pharmaceutical that had been used effectively in the past. What’s been happening is not that. It’s being produced in illicit labs overseas and being shipped here and finding its way in the drug scene.”
Two sheriff’s investigators in California’s Alameda County suffered from accidental exposure to a dust cloud of suspected fentanyl in a hotel room in June. One grew faint, had to be pulled from the hotel room and eventually fell unconscious and into respiratory distress, according to a statement by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. His partner administered two doses of Narcan, a drug that counters the effects of opioids, and he eventually regained consciousness. Although California’s overall opioid overdoses fell in 2017, its 373 fentanyl overdoses were the highest in state history, according to the California Department of Public Health.
In the Boston suburb of Chelsea, three police officers were affected last summer after they were exposed to fentanyl on a call.
“The opioids cut with fentanyl coming around now are so strong that there are concerns it can get into your bloodstream more than any other street drug we’ve ever encountered,” Brooks said.
One Massachusetts politician wants to mandate professional fentanyl cleanup is included at some commercial properties in his state. A state Senate bill filed in February by Sen. Richard Ross would require a professional cleanup to be administered by companies like MayKen or 24 Trauma following fentanyl-related incidents at hotels, multifamily properties and in rental cars. The measure, supported by the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, is working its way through the Massachusetts General Court and could make the state the first in the U.S. to legally require a professional crew to clean areas believed to be exposed to fentanyl. Through a spokesperson, Ross declined to comment on his legislation but did issue a written statement to Bisnow.
“With fentanyl becoming increasingly popular, I find it necessary to try and prevent unintentional contact with the drug that can unfortunately have lethal repercussions,” he wrote.
While there is no national legislation regarding fentanyl cleanup at commercial properties, the White House issued a guideline last year for safety procedures first responders should take at scenes potentially contaminated with fentanyl. Alberta Health Services has a request for information for professional third parties, and it is trying to develop a plan to properly clean properties once they are contaminated with fentanyl.
While the city figures out an official plan, May said his company works closely with city government and health inspectors to share information from jobs to get a better understanding of what to do to tackle the problem. The experience in Newmarket is no different, albeit more complex. Business owners stay in close contact with the city to find a solution, but they aren’t necessarily pleased with the results from City Hall. Pleas for more law enforcement have been met with recommendations to put up “No Trespassing” signs and motion-detecting spotlights around the property.
“What’s a spotlight going to do? Let them see their veins better at night?” one business owner asked.
Several Newmarket business owners told Bisnow they felt pressured not to complain too much out of fear of looking unsympathetic to those suffering from addiction. The Massachusetts governor’s Opioid Working Group recommends against arrest and incarceration for those suffering from addiction, but Sullivan said the continuous flow of drugs into Newmarket is turning off workers in the neighborhood due to safety concerns.
“We talk about not arresting our way out of this problem, and I agree with that, but at some point, when people are shooting up in public, and the problem is getting larger and larger, you need to look at it in a humane way,” she said. “It’s not humane to have people sitting on sidewalks falling over, shooting up in public. You need to give them an option: either you go to jail or you go to treatment.”
One promising development is Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s role on President Donald Trump’s commission on drug addiction and the opioid crisis. Newmarket businesses also hope a program to make Massachusetts a pilot state to dispense methadone while supervised in pharmacies instead of exclusively at methadone clinics would divert the daily illicit drug activity in the area. There are 39 communities with methadone clinics in the state, but there are over 300 with pharmacies identified by the commission as being capable to offer methadone. The Newmarket Business Association also supports opening “soup-to-nuts” treatment facilities across Massachusetts that would offer a months-long program of detox, rehabilitation and workforce development. One such facility is being pursued by Walsh’s administration on Long Island in Boston Harbor, but Sullivan said more are needed to offer the fundamental changes to truly solve the opioid crisis in neighborhoods across the country — not just her own. Unless the problem is addressed with the resources it needs, cosmetic changes just push it a few blocks over.
“I think developers who are speculative think the problem will begin to go away if you change the look of the area,” Sullivan said. “But it doesn’t go away. It just moves, and you have to wonder: Where will it move to?”
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