During the 1970s through the 1990s, it was reported that impure brown heroin contaminated with fungi was causing fungal infections within users, according to Stuart Levitz, MD, professor of medicine and microbiology & physiological systems at the University of Massachusetts.

Dr. Levitz explained;

“During that period, the heroin supply was relatively impure, and people would use lemon juice to dissolve it,” said Levitz, whose research and clinical interest is in fungal infections. “It was believed the lemon juice got contaminated with candida, and drug users were injecting candida into their bloodstream and getting Candida infections. But, the problem went away when the heroin supply became much purer.”

According to the 2018 study by the University of Massachusetts Medical School and published by the CDC, infectious disease, Levitz and his colleagues identified a re-emergence of fungal infections associated with illicit intravenous drug use in a review of candida in patients at UMass Memorial Medical Center. After analyzing198 cases of fungal infections over a 7 year period in patients 14 or older. (1,2)

An unexpectedly large number of patients, 24, had a history of illicit intravenous drug use.

“The take-home point from the study is not necessarily that we compared 24 patients with intravenous drug use to 174 without. It’s the fact that we had 24 patients who were using IV drugs and suffered from Candida infections,” Levitz added. “In addition, nine of the 24 cases were in the last year of the study in correspondence with the surging opioid crisis.”

The researchers concluded, “These cases emphasize that in addition to overdoses, infections remain a serious cause of illness and death for intravenous drug users.”

Interestingly, many of the mental issues and drug psychosis that drug addicts complain of can be easily connected to symptoms associated with a fungal infection. For example, many addicts complain of bugs, parasites, and or mites biting them and eating their organs, such as their brains.

These symptoms are common with METH, cocaine, and heroin addicts, and they are all different drugs. That is why I contend with my supporting research that it is not the drug causing these health conditions and mental illnesses, but the fungal infection within users as a result of doing the drug.

When you look at before and after images of addicts, it does not matter if they are heroin addicts, meth addicts, or cocaine addicts, they all start to “look the same and act very similar or the same”.

Here are some before and after images of heroin addicts.

Now, this is a cocaine addict.

And Meth addicts all look very simlar or the same, which I contend is because they all have fungal infections.

It has been well documented for several decades in the U.S. that systemic candida infections cause skin lesions and even brain abscesses, so heroin addicts, just like METH and other addicts who are complaining of these symptoms, should not be automatically considered crazy and or psychotic by ignorant doctors who have not read the science.

The facts are that obtaining a severe fungal infection from using drugs has been well known for decades in the United States. For example, a study from 1992 discovered that drugs like heroin are already infected with various genus’ of microscopic fungi even before it gets to the nose, lungs, and or blood of a user. Meaning, that when a heroin addict snorts, smokes, and or injects it, they are also injecting the live fungi that are already growing on the heroin into his or her bloodstream.

The researchers studied “the fungal spectrum of brown and white heroin and cocaine sold in the streets of Spain to analyze the extent of adulteration, as well as their toxicological potential. They found that of the 205 drug samples cultured in the appropriate medium grew 91 colonies of micellar fungi from 53 taxa, of which only 8 were found in the 3 types of drugs.”

“Statistical analyses revealed brown heroin to be significantly more contaminated by fungi on the basis of numbers of colonies per milligram of sample than the other two drugs. Forty-five of the 54 taxa isolated were found in brown heroin, with 275 colonies,” according to the study.

Samples of white heroin contained 68 colonies of 18 taxa, while cocaine samples included 48 colonies of 13 taxa. The potential pathogenicity to man of the different isolated taxa includes allergies, pulmonary mycosis, sporosis, systemic or subcutaneous mucormycosis, and asthma.

The researchers concluded, “The fact that brown heroin is more contaminated and heterogeneous in the taxa found in its samples suggests that the contaminants may be introduced during its synthesis or during adulteration with contaminated substances.” (3)

In 1987, researchers sounded the alarm when “a case of Candida albicans endocarditis is described which developed in a heroin addict with aortic valvulopathy after an episode of cutaneous and chondrocostal candidiasis related to the use of “brown” heroin.

The researchers said, “To our knowledge, this is the first case reported in the English literature. This complication should be suspected in all heroin addicts with this new syndrome, especially if valvulopathy is present.” (4)

1992 study of disseminated candidiasis was diagnosed in 83 heroin addicts from November 1983 to April 1990. All patients had consumed brown heroin diluted in fresh lemon juice.

Sixty-two (75%) had skin lesions, 41 (49%) had ocular lesions, and 35 (42%) had one or several costochondral tumors. Candida albicans was grown in culture or histopathologically identified in 34 cases (41%). The patients who had only cutaneous lesions were treated with ketoconazole, and they were all cured. The patients with ocular involvement received systemic amphotericin B with or without oral flucytosine; 29 of these patients developed varying degrees of vision loss.

The researchers concluded, “This is a new syndrome of candidal infection in drug addicts who use brown heroin; ocular lesions are the most harmful manifestation, and loss of vision is the major sequela.” (5)

When my six-year-old son who never took heroin or any illegal drug for that matter, was sick due to toxic mold from a home we rented in Carlsbad, California, one of his major symptoms was that he complained was vision loss and as if he was in a tunnel and his vision was seriously impaired. These vision loss episodes would happen “sporadically,” so when I read the research that heroin addicts suffer from ocular lesions and loss of vision from fungal infections, it made perfect sense.

In 1983, researchers reported about a 21-year old heroin addict from Brittain who was losing his vision has the result of a candida fungal infection. The physicians handling this your man’s case discovered that a white fungus was literally starting to cover his eyeball.

What was really weird was that “there was no evidence of yeasts or other fungi in blood or urine. Serum precipitin tests for candida and aspergillus were also negative.”

A week later, as the eye continued to deteriorate, they were able to culture the white growth to get a specimen from the heroin addict’s eyes. The researcher stated, “In this specimen, a few budding yeasts with occasional short pseudohyphae were seen in the Gram-stained tissue, and cultures produced pure growth of Candida albicans.” (6)

The doctors ended up curing and restoring the man’s vision with the antifungal drugs 5-fluorocytosine (150mg/day in 3 doses) and ketoconazole (200 mg/kg/day oral administration).

A 2004 study titled, Serious bacterial and fungal infections in intravenous drug addicts found that invasive infections caused by bacteria and fungi are common complications of intravenous heroin abuse.

Researchers have documented how these heroin addicts developed fungal infections causing skin abscesses, pyomyositis, spondylodiscitis, septic arthritis, costal osteomyelitis, infective endocarditis, recurrent bacteraemia, and multiple brain abscesses. (7)

Last but not least, there are many reports that the heroin supply has been intentionally contaminated with fungal pathogens and some growers like in Afghanistan even suspect foul play by the U.S.

 

The article stated, “When the report of the fungus was first published, a reliable source directed the author of this article to the Sunshine Project, a now suspended non-profit organisation. In 2000, the international NGO had published a report about “dangerous US fungus experiments”, warning against the potentially harmful impact of the fungus on biodiversity in the target drug-producing regions.

The report said: “The strains of the fungi fusarium oxysporum and pleospora papveracae might infect and kill plants other than coca, poppy, and cannabis in ecologically sensitive areas of Asia and the Americas.”

Whether this is true, I cannot comment, but what we can be certain of is that this fungal infected heroin is still making its way onto the black market and into people’s noses, lungs, eyes, brains, and blood.

SOURCES:

1. UMASS – Fungal infections re-emerge with surge in opioid crisis, study shows

2. CDC

3. Myocontamination of Illicit Samples of Heroin and Cocaine as an Indicator of Adulteration

4. Candida albicans endocarditis possibly related to systemic candidiasis in a heroin addict

5. Disseminated candidiasis in addicts who use brown heroin: report of 83 cases and review

6. Serious bacterial and fungal infections in intravenous drug addicts

7. Candida endophthalmitis in a heroin addict: a case report

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