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* Background is here if you need it. If you read this Associated Press story, you’d never know that these unfounded reactions are somewhat common…
Testing to determine the reason two dozen employees at a state prison this week needed medical treatment for dizziness, nausea and vomiting this week has ruled out “narcotics or hazardous materials,” an official said Thursday.
An Illinois State Police hazardous materials team responded Wednesday afternoon to Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro, 65 miles (105 kilometers) northeast of St. Louis after staff members responding to an inmate “medical incident” were sickened, according to Department of Corrections spokesperson Naomi Puzzello.
And AFSCME also refuses to look beyond its own nose…
In a statement from AFSCME they say:
While we have not yet seen the preliminary State Police report, we are aware of how the Corrections department has characterized it in the media.
Further investigation is needed to explain the very real symptoms that employees experienced.
No one should be lulled into a false sense of security: Potent, dangerous synthetic compounds like fentanyl and others are present in Illinois communities, employees are encountering them in state prisons, and the Department of Corrections must be better prepared to keep safe employees and offenders alike.
IDOC must do more to prevent and prepare for the next such incident that may not be a false alarm. For just one example, steps must be taken to better equip facilities to identify substances in a much shorter timeframe.
* We’ve discussed this before, but let’s take a quick look again. From the New York Times…
For the past five years, I’ve watched a bizarre news cycle play out on repeat. The most recent recurrence began on June 16, when KCTV5, a local news organization in Kansas City, Mo., published police body-camera footage under a dramatic headline: “ ‘I Knew I Was Dying’: How 5 Rounds of Narcan Possibly Saved KCK Police Officer’s Life.” The operative word in that sentence is “possibly.” The footage shows a police officer standing on a snowy lawn in what looks like a suburban neighborhood, wearing sunglasses and disposable gloves, inspecting pills stashed inside a crumpled piece of paper. “Seal it up — that’s fentanyl, dude,” another officer says. “Get that in a bag quick, so we don’t have an exposure.” The time stamp on the video then jumps to five minutes later. The officer who held the pills is now collapsed on the ground, limbs splayed as though making a snow angel. We hear another officer yell, “Narcan, Narcan, Narcan!” The fallen officer gasps rapidly as his fellow officers, with what seems like genuine panic, spray the opioid-overdose antidote up his nose several times.
The officer was taken to a nearby hospital and later released, and, like clockwork, the vivid footage began circulating. But there’s one major problem with all this: It’s nearly impossible for the symptoms depicted to have been caused by “fentanyl exposure.” The scientific literature shows, definitively, that brief contact with fentanyl is not sufficient for it to enter the bloodstream and cross the blood-brain barrier to cause such a rapid overdose. All the way back in 2017, America’s leading toxicological societies noticed the spread of these viral exposure stories and tried to put them to rest; there have since been countless fact-checks and scientific debunkings by major news outlets, including one from The Times’s editorial board. Last month, a 33-year-old clinical toxicologist and emergency-medicine pharmacist named Ryan Feldman co-published a case study about the time he accidentally spilled a mammoth dose of pure liquid fentanyl all over himself at work; he simply washed it off, with no adverse effects.
It’s not that the symptoms seen on video are feigned. Some psychologists suggest a kind of “mass psychogenic illness” is afoot, or a form of conversion disorder — neurological symptoms without a clear physical cause — or, potentially, simple panic attacks. Police officers have been told, by authorities including the Drug Enforcement Administration, that microscopic amounts of fentanyl can be deadly; they are taught to fear this substance. Their bodies may react accordingly, exhibiting symptoms, like rapid breathing, that are indicative of distress and panic. (Fentanyl produces the exact opposite effect; high doses result in slow and shallow breaths.)
National Center for Biotechnology Information…
In line with decades of sensationalistic drug policy coverage (Dasgupta et al., 2018), most mainstream media content on casual exposure-linked overdose fails to include voices of scientific experts, public health officials, and people with lived experience. […]
This is an urgent ethical and public health imperative, as failure to effectively address the spread of misinformation can cost lives and resources. First responders and other witnesses may refuse or delay providing lifesaving help during overdoses. Professional responders report elevated levels of stress, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue; unfounded safety concerns can aggravate these occupational mental health challenges. As opportunistic commercial interests (Harper, 2018) exploit the atmosphere of fear and misinformation, public funds continue to be wasted to address non-existent “biohazard” threats.
* Health & Justice Journal offers up an idea…
Misinformation about overdose risk from accidentally inhaling or touching fentanyl is widespread among police in the United States. This may aggravate already elevated burdens of officer stress and burnout, while chilling lifesaving overdose response. Police education has shown promise in reducing false beliefs about fentanyl. To better understand the potential of training interventions in correcting officer knowledge, we administered a 10-min online training with corrective messaging about occupational overdose risk from fentanyl contact to 204 police officers in Indiana. Overall, 129 officers (63%) completed baseline survey and 69 (34%) completed follow-up instrument. Using a 6-point Likert scale, we documented assent with the statement: “First responders who encounter fentanyl are at great risk of overdose by touching it or inhaling it.” At baseline, 79.8% expressed agreement, while 20.2% disagreed. At follow-up, 39.1% agreed, while 60.9% disagreed (p < .001). Baseline responses varied in that those officers without a college degree and those on patrol were more likely to report false beliefs. A brief online training intervention holds promise for correcting false beliefs about the risk of fentanyl overdose under circumstances commonly encountered by police.
In other words, IDOC and other law enforcement agencies desperately need to start helping these workers get past the fear that’s been instilled in them, whether by their union, or the FOP, or online or whatever. This misinformation/disinformation hurts those workers and it can be dangerous for actual overdose victims who may not receive prompt care. And, for crying out loud, the Associated Press should try using the Google every now and then.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 8:34 am
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It is a Hot Potato, Rich.
AFSCME and FOP cannot admit their members are having panic attacks.
Reporters don’t want to sound like they are accusing law enforcement of having panic attacks.
The public does not want to believe the people we give guns and shoot to kill authority have panic attacks.
And medical professionals just do not even want to touch it.
I think the best way about it is to remove the shame surrounding mental health problems. Mass hysteria is real, and can induce real physiological effects. It is kind of the placebo effect in reverse. We accept placebo effect as a neutral model, we should use it here. No one would blame law enforcement or prison guards if they suffered a placebo effect.
I suppose the question at the heart of the story is whether it is covered by worker’s comp though, right?
Comment by Juvenal Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:01 am
“IDOC and other law enforcement agencies desperately need to start helping these workers get past the fear that’s been instilled in them, whether by their union, or the FOP, or online or whatever.”
Would anyone be surprised if the same deliberately cultivated fear that underlies law enforcement’s nigh-hysterical responses to bogus fentanyl also fueled 2022’s record number of killings by police?
A law enforcement culture of ginned up anxiety and paranoia is bad for police and endangers us all.
– MrJM
Comment by MisterJayEm Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:05 am
The effectiveness of a 10-minute training shows how easy this is to fix. Once someone tells these officers the truth, they understand it. Either IDOC or the union has to step up on this. Rip the bandaid off, and everyone’s lives get a lot easier. Indulging the fantasy isn’t working.
Comment by vern Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:15 am
AFSCME, your job is to protect your workers’ rights and health, including their mental health. You’re not doing anyone any favors by being afraid to challenge their false beliefs.
Comment by Excitable Boy Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:22 am
AFSCME didn’t even wait for the facts. They jumped right in to frame the narrative with false facts and fear mongering. They should look in the mirror before criticizing others.
Comment by Captain Ron Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:28 am
Repeating a comment from the other day: lazy reporting, where media members have to churn out articles quickly, leads to zero critical reporting. Every talking point, even those easily proven false, is reported credulously with no verification.
The number of articles about varying topics that say “Person claims X. Critics claim Y.” when X and Y are objectively verifiable, but the media outlet makes no effort to check (or worse, they never identify who the “critics” are, and their biases) are a scourge on the American people.
Comment by Homebody Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:32 am
==AFSCME, your job is to protect your workers’ rights and health, including their mental health.==
They haven’t done a good job of doing that ever since the employee vaccine mandate was announced.
Comment by Stuck in Celliniland Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:41 am
The other thing that bugs me about this is local news media’s unwillingness to engage with the people pointing out that they blew a story. For whatever reason, otherwise curious reporters shut their brains off when confronted with this particular error. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an outlet issue a correction clarifying that contact overdose is scientifically impossible.
Comment by vern Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:44 am
==And, for crying out loud, the Associated Press should try using the Google every now and then.==
That’s probably too hard to do and too complicated for the barely pubescent “reporters” that Channel 20, the SJR, and the other ilk seem to hire off the street.
Comment by Stuck in Celliniland Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:45 am
==An Illinois State Police hazardous materials team responded Wednesday afternoon to Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro, 65 miles (105 kilometers) northeast of St. Louis==
Or about 50 miles south-southeast of downtown Springfield. Maybe the Illinois Times and/or Bruce Rushton should conduct their own, more well-balanced investigation and story using all the facts?
Comment by Stuck in Celliniland Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:48 am
Good luck to DOC with trying to educate a bunch of people who took horse pills to avoid covid and get their health information from Facebook and Joe Rogan. Yeah, the department will have no problems educating that workforce. They’re notoriously open minded to proven science and facts.
Comment by lol Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 9:53 am
At the risk of painting with an overly-broad brush, and acknowledging some people are exceptional, if you look up the educational requirements to be hired into the Chicago p.d., let’s just say they are screening out Mensa candidates. Less-educated people are more susceptible to influence of misinformation and more difficult to re-train or re-educate, once they are exposed to lies.
Comment by Give Us Barabbas Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 10:44 am
I hope training does indeed improve understanding of the risks, but the 46% loss to followup on that study is really bad. It’s not hard to think of ways that could have biased the results.
Comment by TooManyJens Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 11:21 am
It’s interesting that in healthcare settings where it’s been around forever, you never hear about this.
Comment by OneMan Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 11:31 am
Waiting for the Sheriff’s association to comment. /s
Comment by don the legend Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 11:46 am
While there’s always exceptions, if you read the educational requirements for Chicago police hiring, they don’t exactly encourage Jeopardy contestants to apply. I believe the reverse, that a cop should be highly schooled, with degrees that can help them make better decisions.
Comment by Give Us Barabbas Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 11:51 am
- a cop should be highly schooled, with degrees that can help them make better decisions. -
Entry level CPD officers make more than most college grads. Most college grads don’t want to be cops.
Comment by Excitable Boy Friday, Jan 20, 23 @ 11:54 am