The burlesque about Olivier Poussaert (+Premium-NewsPaper)
Posted on 24/01/2017, Author: Pitts
First, in short, the press release of the WAC concerning this matter:
"Morphine (source: poppy seeds, -oil, -tea) dose-dependent pain threshold-enhancing and calming effect.
- Thresholds in humans: 1000 units
- Not one manure sample of birds studied in South Africa contained morphine at a rate of more than 300 units
- Also by the presence of the substance thebaine , it was observed in all the samples that the morphine was derived exclusively from seeds and was not administered in such a way as a medicament.
- There are several varieties of poppy seeds with highly variable amounts of morphine. Sometimes, small amounts of poppy seeds may give rise to high levels of morphine.
Decision: Opinion "negative" for the supposedly positive cases
Atropine (source: daturaplant) dose-dependent effects: excitation and arrhythmias
- Pigeons threshold originally set by Dr. Schalck based on analysis of 100-rds of samples : clearly significantly higher values were found in samples in 2016 (A and B sample)
- A European Commission document, however, indicates atropine and scopolamine at higher concentrations in human food
- Alarm bell at the WAC: numerous studies from the scientific literature related to food, make reference to higher levels. However, at the time of the decision we had no scientific justification to adopt a higher decision limit and we advised positive.
Decision: atropine positive by the WAC for atropine case in 2016
Nevertheless, we continue to explore more specifically based on scientific literature and the via the KBDB permitted specific testing on the pigeon, to clarify more for the future and to generally narrow the decision limits. ................... "
Question asked to the WAC:
Why don’t you mention that also scopolamine was found in the manure sample of Poussaert whilst with morphine and thebaine you do explicitely mention it ? The presence of scopolamine is decisive in the burden of proof just because the presence of both substances demonstrates that they are derived from plants.
Piet Blancke refused to answer the question and left the meeting room. Vet Schoonheere replied eventually. They had especially taken into account the high levels of presence of atropine. Also, they had no further scientific evidence on the given atropine and scopolamine, and he claimed to know products for pigeons on the market in the Netherlands that contain atropine and scopolamine.
The facts:
Thus, there are indeed sufficient available scientific studies that show that the presence of both atropine and scopolamine, in a certain proportion at the same instant, is the proof that these are derived from plants.
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/scientific_output/files/main_documents/691.pdf
or http://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/scientific_output/files/main_documents/691.pdf
Table 2 shows also that dried leaves and stems of several Datura species may contain similar or
higher amounts of total tropane alkaloids than seeds. Although the total level of tropane alkaloids
may be quite similar in several Datura species, the ratio of hyoscyamine to scopolamine varies
considerably from species to species and in relation to the geographic distribution. In D.
stramonium hyoscyamine often predominates (varying between 50 and 80% of the alkaloids) but in
D. metel the two alkaloids are found in quite similar amounts, and in D. ferox scopolamine is the
major alkaloid (see Table 3). As hyoscyamine and scopolamine have slightly different biological
activities and differ for example in their oral bioavailability, it is of clinical relevance to identify
which Datura species is contaminating a feed. The clearly different alkaloid profile in Datura
stramonium and Datura ferox was confirmed in recent investigations conducted in South Africa
(see Table 3). To make this visible, the authors presented a calculation of the ratio between
Furthermore, as you can read above, there exist also plenty of scientific studies in which there is evidence that there may be large differences in the doses or rather the amounts of atropine / scopolamine that occur in different plants or even may occur in the various parts of the plant in different quantities.
Official statement by Professor Tytgat
"The presence of scopolamine is crucial in the burden of proof"
“Without having one client in the case concerning atropine, it is quite true that the presence of scopolamine found in a pigeon droppings sample is crucial in the burden of proof as to whether or not the deliberately administering of atropine or the occurrance because of contamination. It is therefore incomprehensible that one is silent in the press conference about the presence of scopolamine. Furthermore, I do not know any registered medicines that contain both atropine and scopolamine. This underlines once again the importance of the presence of scopolamine. "
This seems to us clear and plain language of this specialist. Remember that Professor Jan Tytgat is a world authority in the field of toxicology and their investigative techniques
But it can be even better. If there are still doubts then one can look for metabolites. These are degradation products of atropine. The substances Noratropine-Meteloidine and Apoatropine are all piece by piece degradations of Atropine / Scopolamine. These substances are not marketed as such, and their presence proves a "plant administration".
In other words. There are plenty of opportunities to carve out if the atropine found at mr. Poussaert originates from a dropper bottle (exogenous) or if we here still can talk of a contamination.
Questions
A lot of questions remain. Why during the press conference were they silent about the fact that there was scopolamine present? Why is the ratio atropine / scopolamine not determined why is the value not released if it would be determined? Why don’t they say at the press conference how much atropine was found ? But for morphine they do? Why are they not going to look for those famous metabolites to obtain that 100% certainty about the origin of the detected amount of atropine ?
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