Posted on 06/19/2021 11:23:35 AM PDT by billorites
A southern Alberta couple who realized their infant had eaten raccoon feces found themselves racing against time to find a rare medication — and doctors and pharmacists across Western Canada mobilized to help them find it.
Ashley Haughton learned raccoon scat can be extremely dangerous when she found it in her yard in Lethbridge, Alta., and researched how to dispose of it safely.
Raccoons can carry a deadly form of roundworm called Baylisascaris procyonis, and the eggs live in their feces.
An extremely rare parasitic infection can occur if humans ingest the eggs, which hatch into larvae, travel through the body and invade organs, including the eyes and brain.
And so when her one-year-old son ate raccoon feces from a flower pot in the garden just over four weeks ago, Haughton knew to be alarmed: Symptoms of the infection include brain damage, blindness and coma.
It can also be deadly.
"They go through the stomach barrier, they infest your body ... and essentially eat you from the inside out," Jon Martin, the boy's father, told Calgary Eyeopener, a CBC Radio morning show, on Thursday.
"And if you don't treat them quickly enough, there isn't really a way to reverse the effects, because they've literally eaten your tissue." Health Canada gave special authorization
Martin and Haughton immediately called their family doctor and the province's Poison & Drug Information Service.
Both advised the parents to wait and see if their son — whom they didn't want to name in order to protect his privacy — developed symptoms of infection.
Instead, the parents sought to have the feces tested for roundworm, and their veterinarian confirmed the worst: The sample was infested with so many eggs and larvae that they were unable to count them all.
After rushing their son to a hospital emergency room, they were prescribed albendazole, which needs to be taken within three days of exposure.
Special authorization to write the prescription was given by Health Canada, as its manufacturer has not filed a drug submission in Canada, the department told CBC News.
"We started calling around ... to try and track it down and then soon realized that it wasn't available commonly at all," Martin said. 'I couldn't imagine being in that situation'
When Lethbridge pharmacist Bryce Barry got the call that Martin was looking for albendazole and why, he immediately understood the dire predicament.
"I've got young kids, and I couldn't imagine being in that situation," said Barry, who works at Shoppers Drug Mart in Park Place Mall.
But when he checked his suppliers, Barry realized he couldn't bring in the medication to his pharmacy. And when he discovered it's not commercially available in Canada, he started contacting his network. Bryce Barry, a pharmacist at Shoppers Drug Mart in Lethbridge's Park Place Mall, sprang into action when he got the call that Jon Martin needed albendazole for his son. Barry immediately started contacting other pharmacies for help. (Google Maps)
When a drug is not widely available, a compounding pharmacy can prepare personalized medications for patients by mixing individual ingredients together in the exact strength and dosage required.
Barry's friend, Dawson Bremner, had opened a pharmacy in Vancouver that had many suppliers outside of Canada and was doing a lot of compounding — and might be able to order, or make, albendazole.
Bremner couldn't do either, but instead he contacted his pharmaceutical representative, who mass-emailed clients across Western Canada.
It had not compounded the anti-parasitic formula in more than a decade, but it had the medication and the ingredients needed to make it into a palatable liquid.
"When we first got that email ... my technician took it very seriously," said Script co-owner and pharmacist Aleem Datoo. Pharmacist Aleem Datoo, co-owner of Script Pharmacy in Calgary, where the medication was made, says providing it was a 'total team effort.' (Script Pharmacy)
"[But] I don't think we had the full sense of how [serious] the situation was until a few weeks later, when our provincial college called and verified that [the feces] did have this certain parasite.
"That's when we really fully appreciated what had been done — but on our end, it had been a total team effort."
Martin and Haughton, meanwhile, were preparing to drive to Montana to get the drug when they learned the Calgary pharmacy could make it.
"It was one of the happiest phone calls I think you can get in a situation like this," Martin said.
"I mean, I kind of had a breakdown on the phone." 'Everybody came together'
Fifty-six hours after ingesting raccoon feces, Martin and Haughton's son received his first dose of albendazole.
And from the hospital doctors to the veterinarian to a chain of pharmacists, the collaboration between so many people to acquire the drug struck Barry as incredible.
"Everybody came together, and some of us had pretty small parts ... but we were proud to get it in time," Barry said. "And I thought it was pretty neat."
Alberta now a 'hot spot' for tapeworm that can cause fatal tumours in humans, study cautions
Since Martin and Haughton's son was exposed to roundworm four weeks ago, it means he is outside of the usual window for symptoms of infection to appear.
And according to Martin, he seems just fine.
"He's still doing all the wonderful things that the toddler is supposed to do," Martin said. "You can't really ask for much more."
I hate the health care system here.
When my daughter was 18 months old, we visited my MIL in a remote area of Quebec. My girl got yet another ear infection (she had so many that she had to have surgery).
It was Christmas so I had to take her to the hospital. A 40 minute drive.
Long story short, we got there at 10 AM. We waited ... and waited. Finally around 6 PM, I realized that no one had been called to see the doctor in two or three hours.
I went up to the receptionist and said, in my crappy French, “What’s going on?”
She said that the doctors were eating dinner. I said, “Are you telling me that in this hospital there’s not ONE doctor who could see people now?” My crying daughter probably got her attention.
I turned to the crowd in the waiting room and said, “Are you going to put up with this crap?”
My daughter was seen within 15 minutes and others were called too.
That was my first experience with socialized medicine. Suffice it to say that I am not a fan.
Sounds like SOP for COVID. "Yes, you are positive, but there's nothing we can do for you. Go home and wait. If you have trouble breathing, go to the morgue."
Jon Martin, the boy's father, said "He's still doing all the wonderful things that the toddler is supposed to do. You can't really ask for much more."
I'd ask for a health care system that didn't throw up so many horrific roadblocks to getting the treatment your son needs.
I’m guessing you are in the USA and not Canada. The family was all set to drive to Montana from Lethbridge, AB to get the medicine.
Moral of the story: Take you kids to the States to visit the vet.
Oh, well, heaven forfend there be “legal repercussions”.
Better for a person to die.
/we live in crazy world
This is madness.
Yes I’m in the US.
/maybe I should pop off to Tractor Supply and get a bottle of it, just in case.
You could probably hold off until you see an army of raccoons defecating your your garden.
They aren’t called “trash pandas” for nothing.
I can hold off even longer if I can somehow resist eating their crap.
:D
The medical community is beyond negligent in telling the parents to wait and see if their son becomes sick.
They have done the same thing with COVID.
Don’t come in until you are close to dying and irreparably damaged.
And then they wonder why nobody trusts them.
I was privy to see Nazi films of the Jews they infected with the human roundworms and dissected the Jewish victims alive to recover the roundworms...pretty gruesome. The films were property of the US military. I also helped screen the Vietnamese refugees for parasites the Summer of 1975 and found most of them infected with Ancylostoma and Ascarisis as well as many Cestodes.
Hookworms can invade subcutaneously and cause a dermatitis but the roundworms have to be ingested. Intestinal hookworms have to be ingested also.
Well, it certainly is an interesting and well-rounded life that you describe.
"If the parasite is in the migratory mode it may take several treatments to catch it in an area of the victim where the chemical can kill it. "
"Sorry honey, not tonight. The worms are on the prowl."
At least he didn't snort 'em (with a side of parmo), like Hunter Biden - that'll give you brain worms, every time...
Easy, just find Athelas,or Kingsfoil in the common tongue. It is practically laying about everywhere.
( Sung to the tune of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”
“They asked me how I knew
Racoon feces was blue
I just simply said
BS you’ve been fed
Racoon feces is red.”
Canada (and the US) have lurched toward Leftist totalitarianism in the past twenty years.
The trend is accelerating.
Some time ago, I searched for data.
Researchers collected dead raccoons up and down the 101 in the Central CA area.
95% of them were infected.
They also make ‘latrine’ sites. Sometimes in the attics of houses.
Not so cute anymore.
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