The Ugly Truth About This Human Experimentation Scandal, Organ Transplant Waiting Lists, & Fentanyl
PDS Published 04/10/2025
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“Human Experimentation” - those are the words used by a member of a company’s own staff to describe their offshore treatments of cancer patients.
We’re talking about this massive report that the New York Times recently published about start-up company ExThera and their former partner, the billionaire Alan Quasha.
Right, ExThera has exactly one product - a device that works with a dialysis machine to filter blood.
And this filter came into being thanks to a military contest.
Back in 2012, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency asked for proposals for new medical devices that could remove pathogens out of blood. []
The idea being something to deploy in the field to treat soldiers exposed to infections or biological agents.
And ExThera won that contest with their 3 by 9 inch transparent cylinder containing more than 20 million tiny beads. []
How it works is that the beads are coated in a substance that’s similar to the molecule in blood vessels that pathogens bind to.
So the blood goes through the device, the beads capture the bad stuff like pathogens and bacteria, and then blood is sent back into the body.
ExThera’s filter got the stamp of approval from the EU to treat bloodstream infections in 2019 and then when the pandemic came to the US, it was approved by the FDA for Covid patients on the cusp of respiratory failure. []
But as the pandemic eased, ExThera ran into a problem - hospitals had stopped buying their filters.
According to the New York Times, ExThera’s sales peaked at a few million dollars and then began to drop. []
So they started looking for a way to repurpose the filter - with one idea being that maybe it could be used to filter out tumor cells in cancer patients’ bloodstreams.
With circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, being a big factor in cancer metastasizing or spreading. []
And there were some pretty encouraging signs at first - a German lab study reportedly found that CTCs were sticking to the beads inside the filter, at least in test tubes. []
So ExThera took their research further - with Dr. Sanja Ilic, who would later become ExThera’s chief regulatory officer, meeting with a doctor from Croatia and deciding to test the filter on actual cancer patients.
The Times reports that this study had 12 patients and became the basis for all of ExThera’s promises regarding the efficacy of this filter for treating those with cancer. []
The Times says they reviewed phone recordings from ExThera saying that the study yielded extraordinary results.
With John Preston, an ExThera board member, even claiming that 3 patients had been cured and Dr. Ilic saying that another recovered so well from inoperable colon cancer that the patient started training for a marathon. []
But the Times reports that even the doctor who conducted that study says it was too small to draw any reliable conclusions. []
Even calling it, quote, “highly suspicious” to describe the filter treatment as effective at such an early point in the research process. []
And none of the company’s claims were reportedly backed up by published data.
Now, the FDA has allowed ExThera to test their filters on 5 pancreatic cancer patients in Oklahoma. []
But that is just the first step in a years-long process of clinical trials.
So ExThera took things offshore - Preston had a business partner named Alan Quasha who was interested in becoming ExThera’s partner in the Caribbean.
And the Times reports that Quasha was so impressed with the data from the Croatian study that he invested $3 million and then created a subsidiary of his investment firm called Quadrant Clinical Care. []
Which paid ExThera another $10 million to become their distributor in the Caribbean.
Now, Quadrant made a deal with a clinic on the island of Antigua (An-tee-guh) - where the government had given them the okay to use the ExThera filter on cancer patients.
Which gave them a chance to rake in crazy amounts of money - with the Times citing a source saying that Quadrant paid ExThera $1,000 per filter and they needed 3 filters per treatment cycle. []
But they were reportedly charging patients $45,000 per cycle.
And when ExThera employees rolled up to this clinic in An-tee-ga early last year, some of them got very concerned.
ExThera’s former director of medical affairs, Dr. Johnathon Chow, reportedly saw a lack of modern medical equipment, patients bleeding profusely and screaming in pain, and he even heard that patients were forgoing chemotherapy in favor of this treatment. []
Dr. Chow reportedly voiced these concerns to the higher-ups at ExThera - saying the company was taking “undue risks” with patients and subjecting them to “human experimentation.” []
He also reportedly called the An-tee-ga clinic a “dubious foreign operation” - saying it amounted to an unethical and unsafe experiment on patients and urged the ExThera to shut it down. []
But his pleas went unanswered and Dr. Chow resigned from ExThera.
And the company brought in patients - roughly 2 dozen flew down to An-tee-guh for treatment and among them was David Hudlow.
David was suffering from late-stage esophageal cancer when he and his wife Kim heard about ExThera and their blood filter.
The Hudlows, along with Jaime Baskin - the wife of another man with metastasized cancer - got Preston on the phone to learn more about this treatment in An-tee-guh.
On this call, Preston reportedly sang the filter’s praises - bringing up the study in Croatia and saying that by taking out the tumor cells circulating in the blood, the immune system would be able to more effectively fight the tumor itself. []
Even though there is no published data to back that theory up.
He also reportedly mentioned 3 patients who had previously gone through the ExThera treatment in An-tee-guh - saying the improvement in how those patients felt was remarkable. []
Even claiming one woman was doing so well that she didn’t need her pain meds anymore.
Now, it is worth noting here, as the Times does, that it is illegal to promote a drug or medical device in the US that hasn’t been approved by the FDA. []
Which, some have said, is exactly what Preston was doing here.
Though Preston says that what he told the Hudlows and Jaime was, quote, “true and accurate to the best of my knowledge” and took place “at the request of the treating physicians.” []
Even though there was reportedly no doctor involved in setting up this call.
After that call with Preston, Kim Hudlow, being a former nurse, decided to dig a little deeper - she spoke with Dr. Ilic as well as an oncologist that had previously consulted on her husband’s care who had been referring cases to An-tee-guh. []
Though he’s since changed his stance - saying there isn’t enough data to determine what’s real or otherwise. []
But between both doctors’ enthusiasm at the time and the phone call with Preston, the Hudlows had some hope - if not for saving David’s life, then maybe for prolonging it.
So they contacted the president of Quadrant Clinical Care to make the appointment and they sent the company $45,000.
Then they flew to An-tee-guh.
Once they got there, Kim reportedly saw several things that bothered her as a trained nurse - the equipment wasn’t being sterilized, a patient didn’t have a machine monitoring their vitals, the nurses weren’t washing their hands. []
But David went through 3 rounds of filtering - only to feel weaker and in more pain afterwards. [B Roll 0:0-0:18]
Once the Hudlows got back to Florida, they reportedly saw signs that David’s cancer was growing aggressively.
He had skin tumors growing on his back, neck, and head and a test had shown that the amount of cellular tumor DNA in his blood rose by nearly 6 times over. []
Not to mention that he was struggling to breathe and he had to be taken to the ER where they found fluid buildup in the lining of his lungs. []
Kim considered getting David back on chemotherapy but Preston had warned against it on their call before - saying that chemo worked against the filtering process by weakening the immune system. []
So she reportedly called Dr. Ilic at ExThera again - who, according to the Times, told her not to worry about the cellular tumor DNA test results.
And adding that David feeling weak was a good thing - saying it showed he had, quote, “strong immune activation.” []
Dr. Ilic reportedly told Kim again about the Croatia study - even about a patient that had a similar case to David who saw his tumor shrink by 60%. []
She even reportedly said that British doctors had consulted her about the use of filtration for the treatment of Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, who she said had colon cancer. []
Though the Times reports that a source denied that.
And so the Hudlows flew back out to An-tee-guh for another round of treatments.
But David was in rough shape - during the second round of filtration, his pulse reportedly jumped way up and he started gasping for breath. []
He was reportedly transferred to the small ICU at the clinic - where he got a blood transfusion and spent 3 nights on intermittent oxygen.
5 days after the Hudlows arrived, the doctor at the clinic told Kim that David was dying.
He recommended that they get on the same commercial flight that he would be on the next day headed to Florida. []
Saying if David was struggling to breathe onboard, the doctor would declare a medical emergency and pull down the oxygen mask.
But Kim reportedly dismissed that idea - instead tried to get an air ambulance from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. []
But they couldn’t accept an international transfer.
So she begged the clinic in An-tee-guh to sell her a few oxygen tanks and then searched to find a charter jet that would fly them back to the States with the tanks on board.
When they landed in Jacksonville, Kim reportedly rushed David to the Mayo Clinic where they reportedly admitted him within 5 minutes of their arrival. []
Doctors drained more fluid from his lungs and they found that the tumors in his liver, adrenal glands, bones, and soft tissue had multiplied and grown. []
There wasn’t anything they could do and David died days later.
Looking back on it, Kim told the Times that she believes the filtration treatments accelerated his cancer’s progression and made his end of life so much worse than it had to be. []
And David Hudlow is just one example the Times gives - saying they identified at least 6 patients who died of the 20 plus who were treated in An-tee-guh. []
With at least 2 other wives echoing Kim Hudlow’s opinion that the filtration treatments supercharged their husbands’ cancers. []
Though Quandrant’s president says the company, quote, “has no reason to believe that the therapy had a negative impact on any patient’s health.” []
And pointed out that many of the patients they’ve treated were terminally ill before coming to them.
Adding that the perceptions of grieving family members, quote, “are simply not reliable when compared to sound medical review and judgment of their care.” []
It is worth noting that, after the Times sent them a big ol’ list of questions, ExThera told them that it has since split from Quadrant - though they reportedly didn’t give any specific reason. []
And Quadrant is reportedly continuing to treat patients in An-tee-guh with the ExThera filter and has several thousand in storage on the island.
With Alan Quasha saying that the mutual decision to split ways, quote, “had nothing to do with our belief in the efficacy of the filter treatment.”
And ExThera posted a statement in response to the New York Times piece - calling it “a misleading picture” and saying that they “refute the characterization” of their company. []
Noting that neither John Preston nor Dr. Ilic work for the company anymore.
And for now, that’s where we’re at.
There’s a lot of questions unanswered here so we’re just going to have to keep an eye on this as we wait to see what the impact of the Times’ report here will be.
Maybe we’ll get more information as more eyeballs turn onto ExThera and Quadrant’s clinic in An-tee-guh.
But I would love to know your thoughts about this in those comments down below.
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We’ve got some good news and some bad news.
Good news is, for the first time ever, the United States reportedly transplanted more than 48,000 organs last year. [Quote, find “first time”]
Which, for a country with over 100,000 people perpetually on the waiting list, is laudable, though there’s still a lot of room for improvement.
Bad news is, we’re not totally sure all those organs went to the right people.
And no, I’m not talking about a guy who was supposed to get a kidney getting a heart, or some weird Frankenstein shit.
Rather, we’re looking at why, now more than ever, the people at the front of the line for an organ get skipped in favor of someone hundreds or even thousands of spots further back.
A practice which, if this New York Times investigation is correct, could undermine the trust and fairness at the heart of the entire organ transplant system.
But to get a handle on this, we need to understand how that system is supposed to work, and then how it actually works.
So buckle up, because this one’s a doozie.
Right, the first thing you need to know is that everything’s managed by a network of nonprofit organ procurement organizations.
There are 55 of them across the country, with at least one in every state.
And they get government contracts to identify donors, procure those persons’ organs, and match those organs with patients.
With federal rules strictly mandating that they prioritize the patients who need organs most.
But the way they determine that is a little more fluid than you might assume.
Right, because there’s actually no single waiting list, even for a particular type of organ.
Instead, every time an individual organ becomes available, a new, unique list is generated specifically for it.
Because you’ve gotta take the whole registry, then cut off anyone with disqualifying medical or paperwork issues.
Then you cut off anyone with incompatible blood types using an algorithm.
Then you narrow down the patients with other matching traits, such as height and weight.
Then finally you begin ranking them, prioritizing those who are sicker, have been waiting longer and are nearby, among other factors.
And once you’ve got that list in hand, you’re supposed to offer the organ to the doctor for the first patient on the list.
Thing is, that doctor doesn’t have to accept the organ.
Right, if they believe it may not be a good match because of the patient’s age or the organ’s size or a whole host of other reasons, they can decline the offer.
So then you’re supposed to go to the doctor for the second patient in line, then the third, then the fourth, and all the way down until you get someone who takes the organ.
And traditionally, procurement organizations would follow this process pretty faithfully, only breaking from it as a last resort to avoid wasting an organ. [Quote, find “last resort”]
Right, because with kidneys in particular, recipients aren’t identified until after the organ is removed.
And the more time you spend calling up doctors and organizing transport, the longer that organ’s sitting outside the body, nearing its expiration date.
So occasionally organs go to waste, and for a long time that was considered a price worth paying for a fair and just system.
But in 2020, procurement orgs came under fire from Congress and regulators for wasting too many organs. [Headline]
With federal officials moving to begin grading each organization and firing the worst performers.
So with a kick in the butt, the orgs assigned more staff to hospitals to identify donors, got more aggressive with families and recovered more organs from older or sicker donors. [Quote, find “aggressive”]
But according to The Times, they also started taking that list a little less seriously.
So instead of calling ten or eleven doctors before giving up, to pick random numbers, they might just try two or three.
Then they make what’s called an “open offer.”
Right, basically, they pick a hospital, usually one nearby, and then just say, “hey, here’s the organ, no questions asked; now you choose which patient to give it to.”
That way, they shovel organs out the door quicker, and the hospital gets to give one to the patient most likely to survive the transplant.
Now according to The Times, procurement orgs only used this method in about 2% of cases historically. [Quote, find “2 percent”]
But today, the outlet found that virtually all of them do it at least 10% of the time, and a few do it more than 30%. [Quote, find “10 percent”]
With the national average last year for transplants from deceased donors reportedly coming in at just below 20%, six times as often as a few years earlier. [Graph]
So what used to be the last resort, an exception, has now become common practice.
And the Times reports that the United Network for Organ Sharing and the peer review committee who are both supposed to examine open offers to make sure they’re legitimate? [Quote, find “overwhelmed”]
They’re too overwhelmed to examine each case closely. [Same quote]
And the result is that many more organs go to recipients who are less sick, have not been waiting nearly as long, and, in some cases, aren’t even on the list at all. [Quote same link, find “list at all”]
With more than 1,200 people dying over the past five years after they got close to the top of a waiting list but were skipped, according to the Times. [Quote same link, find “1,200”]
Which, of course, doesn’t mean all of them would’ve gotten those organs if they’d been offered them.
Nor does it mean they all would’ve survived had they gotten transplants, or that the other people who did get the organs weren’t saved.
But it does mean that they never got the chance they were promised by a supposedly fair and impartial system, a chance they’d been waiting for after months or years.
Now if you ask the procurement orgs, they’ll argue that they’re wasting fewer organs, performing more transplants, and still sticking to the list whenever they can.
They say that in many of these cases, they only resort to open offers when the clock is ticking down and they practically have no other options.
But The Times suggested another motive that could be responsible, and it’s a familiar one: money.
Right, because matching donors with recipients is a lot of work, and uh, you know …
[Clip, 00:24 - 00:26] Caption: “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
So in 2021, for example, the procurement org in South Carolina phased out its allocation team and gave their duties to other employees already busy with their own regular work. [Quote, find “phased”]
Which cut down on staffing costs, but it also meant the job of allocating organs wasn’t getting the same dedicated attention it had before.
So to streamline the process, executives reportedly created a spreadsheet with preferred doctors’ phone numbers. [Quote same link, find “workaround”]
Then, if the employees were too busy, they could just make open offers to those doctors instead of following the list, according to several of them. [Quote same link, find “too busy”]
And of course, the more organs they get in the hands of doctors, the more money they get in fees from recipient hospitals.
So skipping the list both costs less and makes more.
And if you’re the hospital, you want to get open offers because that means you don’t have to compete with anyone else for organs.
So The Times documented several ways that hospitals work to curry favor with procurement officials.
With one doctor saying his boss had visited every organization on the East Coast. [Quote same link, find “his boss”]
Another saying his hospital had agreed to accept lower-quality organs. [Same quote]
And an administrator adding that she had negotiated over payments for organ transport. [Same quote]
And then, if you look at the Ohio org that reportedly skipped the list the most over the past two years, the same shit rises to the surface.
With 10 current or former employees telling the outlet that it steers organs to the Cleveland Clinic, a prestigious nearby hospital. [Quote same link, find “Cleveland”]
And this reportedly only happening after the org hired senior leaders who had worked at the Clinic, and signed a contract paying the hospital for medical advisers. [Quote same link, find “advisors”]
So now, according to The Times, hospitals expect this kind of stuff, with at least 16 quietly creating so-called “hot lists” of patients to call when they get open offers. [Quote same link, find “16”]
And we know from the data that open offers tend to put organs in very different kinds of bodies than the traditional waiting list does.
So for example, they seem to generally go to healthier patients who don’t need transplants as desperately.
With less than 40% of hearts that were donated by skipping the line reportedly going to patients sick enough to be hospitalized in recent years. [Quote same link, find “40 percent”]
Compared to 80%, or double that, for the overall rate.
Which makes sense; right, I mean, hospitals are incentivized to prefer their healthier patients because that brings their post-transplant survival rate up.
Which then puts them in the good graces of insurance companies and the government.
Also, when you put the decision-making power in the hands of hospitals, that arguably introduces greater room for implicit or explicit bias.
So another thing The Times found is that when lists are ignored, organs disproportionately go to patients who are white, Asian, male, college graduates and candidates at larger hospitals. [Quote same link, find “larger hospitals”]
And for all of that, there’s not even evidence that fewer organs are being wasted.
At least not according to a group of doctors and researchers asked by the transplant system last year to study the practice, whose report was never released. [Quote same link, find “unreleased”]
In fact, if anything, the rate of organs being discarded appears to have increased.
Though while list-skipping has risen from 1% to nearly 20%, organ waste has only risen from 19% to 22%. [Graph]
So for the critics, it’s unclear exactly what we gain by skipping the list, but it’s very clear what we lose, aside from fair outcomes: trust.
And so the argument goes, if people don’t trust the system, they’ll be less inclined to donate to it, and that means fewer organs for everybody.
But if you work in this field, or you’re a patient, or you’re just a fella with an opinion, I’d love to hear from you about all this.
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Is America’s fentanyl crisis finally getting better? Or is it just about to get a whole lot worse?
Right, because while overdose deaths have been dropping in the US, cartel-recruited chemists are reportedly working in clandestine, mountainside drug labs to reverse the progress that’s been made.
And with that, let’s start by talking about how fentanyl is made.
And no, this isn’t a tutorial.
Right, all you need to know is that the fentanyl trade hinges on the availability of chemical compounds known as “precursors.”
If you got ‘em, fentanyl is pretty straightforward to produce.
Right, that’s compared to something like methamphetamine, for example, which requires advanced equipment and expertise to manufacture at scale.
When the Seen-nah-low-uh Cartel began mass-producing fentanyl about a decade ago, for example, it reportedly relied on uneducated workers from the countryside. []
Right, they didn’t need to know chemistry, they just needed to be able to follow a recipe.
You’ve even had one of these “cooks” – who was reportedly twelve-years-old when he dropped out of school to take up the trade – telling Reuters:
“It’s like making chicken soup.”
“It’s mega-easy making that drug.” []
And with that, China has been the dominant source of chemical precursors used by Mexican cartels.
While Chinese money launderers have also become key players in the international drug trade.
And it’s believed by many that the Chinese government at the very least turns a blind eye to this illegal activity.
With the growing consensus among many Republicans being that Beijing has actually exploited, or even engineered, the fentanyl crisis.[]
The Biden administration, on the other hand, saying there’s no evidence that China is directly involved in the large-scale exports of illicit fentanyl precursors.
But either way, getting your hands on precursors? It’s historically been pretty easy.
A Reuters investigation last year, for example, found that anyone with a mailbox, an internet connection, and digital currency can get their hands on everything you need to make a deadly dose of fentanyl. []
In fact, for less than $4,000, the news organization obtained enough material to make $3 million worth –
And that’s reportedly a conservative estimate based on prices cited by American law enforcement agencies.[]
And if you’re not clear on how deadly fentanyl really is…
It’s been described as 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
And it’s responsible for the vast majority of overdose deaths in America.
In fact, fentanyl reportedly kills more Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 than anything else.[]
But notably, the tide has seemingly started to shift.
Right, between July 2023 and July 2024, for example, overall overdose deaths declined by about 17 percent nationwide.[]
And now don't get me wrong, we’re still talking about almost 100,000 deaths.
And of course, we’re still waiting to see for sure whether the decline is just a blip or the beginning of a sustained long-term trend.
But still, that kind of dropoff in fatalities has inspired a lot of hope that something we’re doing has been working.
Right, for example, you have experts citing the widespread availability of naloxone, new and improved treatment programs, and increased awareness about the risks.
But then, you also have people saying it’s a supply-side issue.
China, for example, has moved to restrict the export of fentanyl precursors.
Though, of course, critics say it’s not doing as much as it could.
But then, Mexico has cracked down on chemical imports as well.
Plus, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed supply chains and made those ingredients harder to find.
And with all that, according to some analysts and experts, the data indicates a major disruption in the fentanyl supply chain.[]
Notably, with some saying international pressure on Chinese companies that make fentanyl precursor chemicals may be a factor. []
And then, possibly related to all that, Mexican drug cartels are reportedly mixing weaker batches of fentanyl.
In 2023, for instance, seven out of 10 counterfeit pills tested in DEA labs contained a life-threatening amount of fentanyl.
But in 2024, that number dropped to five out of 10.[]
But the cartels? They’re reportedly working to remedy that.
Right, reporting from the New York Times example, revealing how Mexican criminal groups are recruiting chemistry students studying at Mexican universities to help them with two main goals:
One, working to make the drug stronger and “get more people hooked.”
And two, figuring out how to synthesize precursors, thereby freeing them from having to import those raw materials from China.
If they succeed, American officials say it would represent a terrifying new phase in the fentanyl crisis.
Right, saying it would make it more difficult for law enforcement in both countries to stop the industrialized production of synthetic opioids in Mexico.[]
With Todd Robinson, head of the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, noting that:
The cartels “know we are now focused on the illicit trafficking of these precursor chemicals around the world.”[]
Adding that those efforts are driving the cartels “to try to bring this thing in-house.”
And finally, saying: “The practical result of that is their ability to more easily and quickly transfer those drugs to the United States.”[]
And with that, this isn’t a totally new phenomenon.
In 2020, for example, a hacker group leaked a Mexican intelligence assessment finding that the Sinaloa Cartel appeared to be recruiting chemistry professors.
With the aim there being to develop fentanyl precursor chemicals after the pandemic slowed supply chains.[]
But with even students now in the mix, the effort may very well be ramping up.
One chemistry professor, for example, telling the Times that students have been enrolling in chemistry classes just to become more familiar with skills needed to cook synthetic drugs. []
And apparently, subtlety isn’t always their strong suit, with the professor saying:
“Sometimes when I am teaching them synthesis of pharmaceutical drugs, they openly ask me, ‘Hey, professor, when are you teaching us how to synthesize cocaine and other things?’”[]
And you might be able to understand their interest.
With a cartel recruiter telling the Times that if he finds someone particularly promising, he might offer to cover the student’s tuition cost, saying:[]
“We are a company; what a company does is invest in their best people.” []
And with that, tuition reimbursement or not, the work pays way more than many legal jobs in chemistry.
One second-year student, for example, had chosen to study chemistry because his father had cancer and he wanted to help find a cure.[]
But in the meantime, the treatment his father needed was impossible for the family to afford.[]
Right, that’s until the recruiter visited campus and offered him $800 up front, plus a monthly salary of $800.
That’s twice as much as the average pay for chemists formally employed in Mexico.[]
And so, of course, with his dad dying of cancer, he said he was interested.
And five days later he says was picked up by cartel members, blindfolded, and driven to a clandestine lab hidden in the mountains. []
After three days of work, he said, one of the men in charge told him that he wasn’t there to make fentanyl.
He was the newest member of a research and development lab, where everyone was working to figure out how to make precursors from scratch.[]
Notably, the student saying he found himself working with three other students from his class in university[]
A cartel boss recently visited the lab to praise his work, the student said, telling him that if he was able to help produce precursors successfully, the group would give him a house or a car, whatever he wanted.
With that, the recruiter and all three students interviewed by the Times said they hadn’t successfully produced precursors yet.[]
With one a 21-year-old who had dropped out of school to work for the cartel saying:
“We are close, but it’s not easy.”
“We need to keep doing tests and more tests.”[]
Also, notably, while the precursors are still coming along, the recruiter said the students had been helpful in one key respect: making the fentanyl even more potent.[]
And with that, these developments are not only worrying for what they might mean for the progress made on fentanyl in the US, but also that they could make the drug more available elsewhere.
Right, Mexico, for example, is already dealing with a meth issue.
And notably, like fentanyl, meth started as a US-bound product, but transformed into a domestic drug problem over the last decade.
And the fear among many now is that that use of fentanyl could follow the trajectory of methamphetamine over the past decade.[]
And in fact, a Reuters investigation has found that fentanyl use is already spreading deeper into Mexico, although the scale of consumption is unclear thanks to a lack of data and testing.
And then, beyond that, you’ve also had European officials on alert about fentanyl becoming an issue over there.
But ultimately, of course, we’ll have to see where this goes, and if everything that’s been learned tackling this crisis can be used to keep it in check.
