Since the death of Michael Jackson there has been a lot of talk about the toxicology report from the coroner and what the findings will be.  So what is a toxicology report, or for that matter what is toxicology? Toxicology is the study of chemicals and their effects on living organisms.  The most basic fact behind toxicology is that all chemicals are poisons in a high enough dose, this includes essential chemicals such as water and oxygen; the right dose is what marks the difference between a drug and a poison.  Toxicological tests for a toxicology report are run to assess what chemicals at what levels were in a person when they died to see if a chemical, or mix of chemicals, contributed to the person’s death.  

Drug, or chemical, levels can be at sub-therapeutic, therapeutic, and supra-therapeutic levels.  Sub-therapeutic levels means that the amount of the chemical in the body is less than what would be needed to provide the healing effect it is intended to have. Sub-therapeutic levels of drugs often show up in the system from therapeutic doses from days before when the body is still metabolizing or getting rid of the remnants of a drug.  Therapeutic levels are the levels of a chemical that are the proper amount to have a beneficial healing effect; therapeutic levels are found when the suggested dose of a chemical is ingested.  Supra-therapeutic levels are levels that are higher than the therapeutic levels,these levels are reached when too much of a chemical or drug is administered or ingested; supra-therapeutic levels of a drug can make it a poison.  Aspirin is a good example of a chemical that can have an effect at any of the above three levels.  At sub-therapeutic levels it can be beneficial to the body via an antiplatelet effect as a blood thinner but will not have a healing effect on any pain or inflamation in the body, at therapeutic levels aspirin can act as an analgesic that relieves pain or inflammation, while at supra-therapeutic levels aspirin is a poison that can cause death.

If more than one drug is in the system then toxicological tests  also have to assess what the effects of the drugs together may have been on a person.  One especially dangerous interaction of drugs is a synergistic interaction. Drugs can interact synergistically where in the mix of drugs magnifies both drugs’ effects.  This means that the interaction makes the effect of the two drugs stronger than just the combined effect of the two drugs without the synergism.  A simpler explanation may be if drug one had a 1 effect and drug two had a 2 effect then the combined effect of the two drugs, without synergism, would be 3 but with synergism it would be 4 or more; the effect is greater.  An especially dangerous example is sedatives.  Two sedatives may each have the reaction of putting someone to sleep, working together they may have a greater and maybe quicker sleep effect than with just one drug alone but synergistically they may be deadly via an overly strong suppression of the respiratory system.

Michael Jackson is thought to have had many drugs in his system, but one of the reactions hypothesized to have caused his death was a synergistic reaction between sedatives. Jackson’s death has been ruled a homicide, which means the toxicology report will be forensically very important to assess legal fault or blame. 

 To read about the coroner’s report and Jackson’s doctor’s statements click here.

For more information about Forensic Toxicology, as well as other forensic specialties, check out All-About-Forensic-com, a comprehensive forensics website maintained by two forensic professionals.

Tags: Add new tag, Forensic Science, Michael Jackson, Mystery, Poison, Scandal, Story, toxicology, Tragedy

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 9:42 am and is filed under Forensics in The News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.