Impact of Mandatory Carbon Monoxide Alarms: An Investigation of the Effects on Detection and Poisoning Rates in New York City.

Objectives: We sought to evaluate the impact of New York City's (NYC's) 2004 carbon monoxide (CO) alarm legislation on CO incident detection and poisoning rates.

Methods: We compared CO poisoning deaths, hospitalizations, exposures reported to Poison Control, and fire department investigations, before and after the law for 2000 to 2010. Use of CO alarms was assessed in the 2009 NYC Community Health Survey.

Phencyclidine: a 5-year retrospective review from the New York City Medical Examiner's Office.

We report here a 5-year retrospective review of autopsy cases from the New York City Medical Examiner's Office that demonstrated phencyclidine (PCP) in the blood. There were a total of 138 cases. There were 52 deaths because of mixed drug intoxication: the blood PCP concentrations in these cases ranged from <1 to 598 ng/mL.

Testing positive for methadone and either a tricyclic antidepressant or a benzodiazepine is associated with an accidental overdose death: analysis of medical examiner data.

Objectives: Patients in emergency departments who use methadone frequently use tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and/or benzodiazepines (BZDs). This is a potentially dangerous drug combination. The authors hypothesized that the presence of methadone and a TCA, a BZD, or both is associated with an "accidental" overdose (AOD) death more often than a death from any other cause.

Fatalities by ingestion of propylene glycol.

Propylene glycol (PG), a widely used solvent and lubricant, is thought to have low toxicity when ingested. Three cases were identified where PG, either alone or in combination with other chemical agents, contributed to death. The decedent in whom PG was the sole agent was a 32-year-old schizophrenic man with cardiomegaly and renal impairment.

Ecstasy (MDMA) deaths in New York City: a case series and review of the literature.

MDMA ("ecstasy") has gained renewed popularity as a drug of abuse. To access the epidemiology and causes of death of MDMA-positive fatalities, all deaths investigated by the OCME that tested positive for MDMA (22 deaths) between January 1997 and June 2000 were reviewed. There were three deaths in each 1997 and 1998, eleven in 1999, and five in the first part of 2000.