- MOSCOW (UPI) -- The U.S.
government has received a preliminary list of the effects of the gas used
during a raid to end the siege of the Moscow theater, but would not release
it to the media, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy there told United Press
International Tuesday.
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- The United States has not yet been given information
on the type of gas used, she said, adding that doctors at another consulate
had determined it was likely not a nerve gas.
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- The list of symptoms was provided by Russian authorities
after the United States and other Western nations asked them for information
on the nature of the agent used. The gas, pumped into the Moscow theater
before special forces entered to end a standoff with Chechen rebels on
Saturday, apparently caused the deaths of all but two of the 117 hostages
killed during the raid.
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- "A Western embassy in Moscow has had its physicians
examine surviving hostages and concluded that the agent they were exposed
to appears to be consistent with an opiate rather than a nerve agent,"
the spokeswoman said,
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- Experts told UPI that -- if it were an opiate -- the
gas represented a significant development, since opiates are not known
to have been aerosolized. It is unclear what opiate agent might have been
used.
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- Some media accounts have suggested the gas contained
an opiate known as fentanyl. "This is a potent, potent, potent narcotic,"
and it would cause symptoms such as respiratory paralysis, low blood pressure
and unconsciousness that fit the reports coming out of Moscow, said Mike
Ellis, director of the Southeast Texas Poison Center. Fentanyl is used
as an anesthetic and it is available in a patch, but Ellis said he is "not
aware that it comes in gas form."
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- S.J. Enna, professor of pharmacology at the University
of Kansas Medical Center, agreed that fentanyl would certainly fit the
symptoms seen in the Moscow hostages. "Fentanyl is a very powerful
opiate. That would certainly be incapacitating," he said.
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- Reports that naloxone -- a drug used to treat heroin
overdoses -- was being used to resuscitate hostages exposed to the gas
"clinches it" that it was an opiate gas, Enna said. Naloxone
"won't block anything else other than an opiate," he said.
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- "Naloxone would work like a champ," if it was
an opiate gas, he said. "Within a matter of minutes, you'll come out
of the clutches of the opiate," he added. The problem though is that
naloxone is metabolized much more quickly by the body than opiates so you
have to keep giving it to the victims until all of the opiate is gone from
their system.
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- "It's sounding more and more like it's some kind
of opiate," Enna said. But he noted, "There's no way to tell
what opiate it could be."
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- "As far as I know, it could be anything," he
said. "I never would've guessed they could've gotten an opiate into
an aerosol. To my knowledge that has not been done."
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- "Opiates tend to be solids at room temperature so
you have to modify them so that they can be suspended and sprayed in a
gas," he said.
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- The U.S. Army declined to comment on whether it had knowledge
of the existence of opiate gases. A spokeswoman who requested anonymity
told UPI the Army's Institute of Chemical Defenses does not "want
to get into the game of guessing. Until they come out with what gas was
used, the Army's position is not to comment right now."
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- The U.S. Embassy spokeswoman also told UPI the remains
of Sandy Booker, an American who died in the raid, have been positively
identified.
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- "The other American known to be in theater is still
recuperating in a Moscow hospital and has asked that their name not be
released," the spokeswoman said.
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- (With additional reporting from Steve Mitchell, UPI Medical
Correspondent, in Washington.)
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- Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All
rights reserved.
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