A large number of Utah’s Latino immigrants are risking their lives by taking an illegal pain reliever, U doctors say.
Up to 35 percent of the Latino patients seen at the U’s South Main Public Health Center use the drug.
A Latino boy, brought to a U clinic with a severe infection in May, led doctors to discover the widespread use.
In a recent report to the Pediatric Academic Societies in Baltimore, U physicians noted that one-fourth of the immigrants surveyed said they had bought metamizole in Utah or other states. The rest bought the Drug in Mexico.
Joshua Bonkowsky, the first U doctor to examine the 4-year-old boy, presented the report that said metamizole use is common and may be under-recognized in immigrant Latino patients.
Made in Europe and marketed as a pain reliever, doctors say the drug has potentially fatal side effects that include a white blood-cell deficiency that could lead to serious infection and death if untreated.
The drug, still legally sold in Mexico and other developing countries, was outlawed in 1979 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because of its serious side effects.
The Latino boy was brought to the U’s clinic with a fever, stiff joints and low white blood cell count. When he tested negative for leukemia, doctors spoke with the boy’s parents and learned that he had been given metamizole to relieve pain.
“Not only had he taken it, but [his parents] had purchased it here in Salt Lake City,” said Carrie Byington, associate professor of pediatrics at the U School of Medicine and the report’s lead author.
Byington recognized the symptoms of metamizole use in the 4-year-old boy because he received medical training in Texas where use of the drug is much more prevalent, she said.
Doctors questioned the boy’s parents further and learned that his mother had been hospitalized recently for a life-threatening infection associated with taking metamizole.
Both the boy and his mother were treated with antibiotics and recovered.
According to Byington, a bottle of metamizole costs about $11 in Utah which is cheaper than prescription drugs.
Latinos buy the drug through stores that serve the immigrant population in Utah and other states selling medications and home remedies that can be “potentially dangerous,” Byington said.
Physicians do not yet know if immigrant groups other than Latinos are at risk from metamizole. But they do know the drug is marketed in Asia and Africa as well.
According to U physicians, as the U.S. population becomes more diverse, particularly with people of Latino heritage, the threat presented by metamizole and other drugs may increase.
For now, they hope to get the word out to immigrant populations in order to avoid more illnesses or deaths associated with use of the drug.