Two Oak Park public health employees helped author a study on overdoses on the city’s West Side, finding a string of cases in which people had ingested a veterinary anesthetic.
Oak Park epidemiologist Emma Betancourt and former Oak Park Public Health Nurse Kitty Monty contributed to a study on how medetomidine, a nonopioid sedative not approved for use in humans, was detected in illegally manufactured opioids. The study is an example of the Oak Park’s health department’s collaboration with other public health organizations to support its goals, according to a village manager’s report.
“This case marks an important contribution to opioid research in the United States,” the village said in the report.
The study documented the first ever “cluster” of overdoses involving the veterinary anesthetic medetomidine, finding 12 confirmed cases, 26 probable cases and 140 suspected cases of medetomidine-involved overdose mostly on Chicago’s West Side between May 11 and May 17, 2024. The study found that these overdose patients suffered from dangerously low heart rates and that they did not respond as well to naloxone overdose interventions, according to the CDC.
Medetomidine had first been identified as a drug contaminant in North America in 2022, according to the CDC. It is not recognized as a controlled substance.
“This cluster is the largest reported for confirmed medetomidine-involved overdoses,” the report said. “Multisector surveillance, including by health care providers, toxicology laboratories, and public health personnel, was essential for quickly identifying and responding to new adulterants in the illegal drug supply. Because all specimens and samples in this investigation that contained medetomidine also contained natural or synthetic opioids, administering naloxone for all suspected opioid-involved overdoses remains crucial.”
In response to the publication, the American Animal Hospital Association issued an alert to its membership advising them to keep a close watch over medetomidine supplies.
“Medetomidine shouldn’t be located in a place that clients can access,” Lauren Forsythe, a veterinary pharmacist, said in an agency publication. “In my opinion, these concerns bump medetomidine up higher on the priority drugs to check inventory of than some other non-controlled drugs.”
In each of the overdose cases involving medetomidine covered in the CDC study, the person who overdosed had also ingested Fentanyl.
Several Oak Park residents have died as result of opioid overdoses since last year, with the overdose deaths coming mostly as result of exposure to fentanyl, according to finalized case reports from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Opioid overdose cases in Cook County overall are on the decline since hitting a peak in 2022, when 2,001 residents died as result of accidental opioid overdoses, according to the medical examiner. When the medical examiner published its preliminary report on Cook County’s 2024 death statistics on Jan. 3 only 1,026 residents had been confirmed to have died from accidental opioid overdoses, but the agency expected pending cases to add at least 200 more deaths to that total. Among those 1,026 overdose cases confirmed in 2024, 87% involved fentanyl, according to the medical examiner’s office.