From
ABC News:
Flesh-eating bacteria devoured the muscle and skin on the arm of a New Orleans woman after she injected “
bath salts,” an increasingly popular stimulant drug. Doctors say the infection is unusual, but might become more widespread as more users inject the drug to get high.
Dr. Robert Russo, an orthopedic resident at the hospital, said he’s uncertain how the flesh-eating bacteria got into the woman’s arm. It could have been lurking on the needle she used or in the bath salts themselves. But he said he worries that the drug’s growing popularity means more people will be at risk for infection.
“Just from people using more needles, you could see a rise in these kinds of cases,” he said. “And the risks of using this drug, it’s not just getting your arm taken off. The drug is crazy.”
Bath salts are a powder made of amphetamine-like chemicals, such as methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MPDV), mephedrone and pyrovalerone, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Once sold legally online and in drug paraphernalia stores, users mostly snorted or swallowed it to get high. Recently, injection has become a more popular route, because it delivers the drug’s effects faster and more powerfully. The Drug Enforcement Administration made the drug illegal in September.