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Lab Culture is a podcast by the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) about public health, laboratory science, and everything in between. Join us for discussions about infectious diseases, food safety, emergency preparedness, newborn screening, environmental health, global health and more.

Apr 3, 2019

In the spring of 2018 patients suffering from profuse bleeding swamped emergency rooms in Illinois and Wisconsin. The cause? Synthetic cannabinoids laced with rat poison.

When an outbreak of contaminated synthetic cannabinoids reached Wisconsin in 2018, scientists at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) rushed to develop the first quantitative method for diagnostic testing of brodifacoum, a powerful anticoagulant used in rat poison. Thanks to their work, patients with brodifacoum poisoning can now be treated with a precisely calibrated dose of vitamin K and that treatment can be ended when it is no longer medically necessary. Previously, physicians had to guess when to end treatment and re-start it if they guessed wrong.

WSLH’s Noel Stanton, Chemical Emergency Response Coordinator, and Bill Krick, an Advanced Chemist in the Chemical Emergency Response Unit, speak with Public Affairs Director Jan Klawitter about the test’s development and the outbreak that made it necessary.

 

Links:

Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH)

Accolades for WSLH’s Chemical Emergency Response Team

Synthetic Cannabinoids (K2, Spice) – Wisconsin Department of Health Services

Lab Matters: Indiana and Wisconsin Respond to Synthetic Cannabinoid Contamination

Laboratory Response Network (LRN)

APHL in Action archives