Michael administered Drugs Propofol
Posted on August 26, 2009
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A SLEEPLESS Michael Jackson spent his last hours begging his doctor for a powerful anaesthetic. For six hours, Dr Conrad Murray resisted, fearful that the singer had developed a dangerous addiction to propofol, according to court records. Instead, Dr Murray administered the sedatives Valium, lorazepam and midazolam five times over six hours. But none put Jackson to sleep, and he continued to demand his ”milk”, the word the pop star used for propofol. Dr Murray finally relented and added the drug to Jackson’s intravenous drip, according to the records. That dose, mixed with the cocktail of other sedatives, was enough to kill the singer, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office concluded in a preliminary toxicology report cited in a search-warrant affidavit unsealed in Houston this week.
These documents address one of the central questions in the death investigation: what killed Jackson? The coroner’s office found ”lethal levels” of propofol in the singer’s system. The records also lay out the first detailed chronology of Jackson’s final hours on June 25 – and reveal Dr Murray’s fateful decision to give Jackson the drugs despite his suspicions that the singer was becoming addicted to them. A doctor implicated in Michael Jackson’s death has insisted he refused to give the singer Propofol.
Dr Allan Metzger said the singer demanded the powerful sedative in April because of trouble sleeping. But his lawyer Harland Braun said: “Dr Metzger told him that he wouldn’t give it to him. Dr Metzger turned Michael Jackson down.” The medic was officially named on Monday in a search warrant on the home of Jacko’s personal physician Dr Conrad Murray. The papers revealed the star died from a cocktail of drugs including propofol and another sedative midazolam, normally given to patients in hospital intensive care units. Investigators have linked pop star Michael Jackson’s death to the drug propofol, which experts say is a powerful anesthetic capable of stopping someone from breathing and that should only be used in a medical setting.
Here are some key facts on the drug:
* Propofol, also known by the trade name Diprivan, is a short-acting, intravenous sedative used for general anesthesia in medical settings, often on patients who are intubated, with a machine to help them breathe.
* It is used in procedures such as colonoscopy, endoscopy and oral surgery.
* Propofol also is known among health care workers as “milk of amnesia” because it has a white, milky appearance and the patient wakes up gently but with no memory of the immediate past.
* The American Society of Anesthesiologists says propofol should “never be used outside of a controlled and monitored medical setting.”
* Propofol is often used for procedures requiring sedation but patients have different responses to the drug and some can lose the ability to breathe, the ASA said.
* The drug is used in hospitals, surgery centers and similar locations with strict guidelines requiring special training for those administering it and the availability of resuscitation equipment.
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