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Friday, September 29, 2006

an update on Anna Nicole's son Daniel


From Yahoo:
An American examiner hired by the family, Cyril Wecht, said 20-year-old Daniel Smith had methadone and two antidepressants in his system when he died Sept. 10 in his mother's hospital room in the Bahamas. Low levels of the three drugs interacted to cause an accidental death, Wecht said.

Daniel Smith, who reportedly was hospitalized for depression and back pain before he traveled to Nassau, had been prescribed the antidepressant Lexapro, Wecht said. He said he had not determined whether Smith had also been prescribed Zoloft, the other antidepressant found in his system.

The two drugs can be lethal when taken together or in sequence, according to Ann Blake Tracy, the Des Moines, Iowa-based director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness.

"The residue can stay there for some time, and if they're prescribed one after they've taken another, they can end up in trouble," she said.

Wecht said he did not know why Smith was taking methadone, a pain-reliever that is also used to ease heroin cravings for recovering addicts.

The combination of the three drugs, even in low doses, could easily have killed Smith, said Lisa Johnson, a pharmacist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

"The methadone will slow you down, but the other ones make your system speed up, so it's an odd combination," she said.

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