Wrong impression given to readers, say experts
Dr. Collin Seneviratne, a toxicologist based in UK and Prof. Sarathchandra Kodikara, a pathologist and the Head of the Peradeniya University’s Forensic Medicine Faculty has responded to last week’s article with the heading “Govt. Analyst Department not sufficiently equipped: Many killings mysterious deaths go unsolved”.
They said;
The heading of this article is erroneous, misleading and gives a wrong impression to the readers and this is not what our discussion was meant to convey to the general public.
The whole intention of the discussion was sharing Dr. Collin Senevirathne’s experiences in the UK and to highlight the importance of using new analytical technologies in the fight against drug analysis/detection, with special reference to western countries.
We all agree that the government agencies including the Government Analyst Department are doing a commendable job in fighting against drug detection and drug analysis in this country. The point we were trying to make is that the illicit drug market in the west is inundated with many common drugs of abuse cut with more potent drugs (e.g. fentanyl derivatives and other drugs) every day and the conventional analysis might not be adequate to pick these drugs in routine analysis. Therefore, the need of using more sophisticated analytical equipment, technological transfer from developed counties and personnel training would be highly beneficial in fight against such crimes.
In addition, the following corrections are needed in the article.
1. “…important to determine the particular drug and its content…” needs to be corrected as “…important to determine the particular drug and its quantity in blood…”
2. “…blanket screening on more than 800 people…” needs to be corrected as ““…blanket drug screening for more than 800 drugs…”, which includes most of the cutting agents.
3. “…the coroner was called upon to do a post-mortem…” needs to be corrected as
“…the coroner was called upon to do an inquest into the unexplained and sudden deaths, including hospital deaths…”
4. “The coroner according to available evidence inquired into sudden death.” needs to be corrected as “The coroner will have an inquest into sudden death.”
5. “…scientific investigation was done and forensic pathogens were called upon to determine the cause.” needs be corrected as “…scientific investigations are done to determine the cause of death.”
6. “…the body was sent to a toxicologist…” needs to be corrected as “… the post-mortem samples, e.g. blood, urine and vitreous are sent to a toxicologist after the autopsy…”
7. Dr Seneviratne said that “death was a process and the 72-hour time interval stated there on”. That paragraph needs to be corrected as follows.
Dr Seneviratne said that “the death was a ‘process and not an event’. At the autopsy, body fluids/ muscle specimens are taken, depending on the sample availability (and no time limit specified)”.
8. …Amphetamine is not harmful”. This was misquoted and should not be used per se, and should be corrected as “in my experience, the deaths due to amphetamine alone are rare. However, in such cases its worthwhile investigating further to detect the presence of other drugs in that blood sample.
9. “…carfentanil, which was a powerful opioid, ten times more powerful than morphine…” needs to be corrected as “… carfentanyl, which was a powerful opioid drug, ten thousand times more potent than morphine…”
10 “He said the Government Analyst Department was not sufficiently equipped to determine cause of death. It could determine only common drugs.” Dr. Collin Senevirathne categorically denies this paragraph which he never said and also, he is not working here in this country to comment on such issues. We apologise for any inconvenience caused to the Government Analyst Department by this article which was never intended.