Cancer, found and missed
Sold as a cancer cure. The active ingredient is metabolised to cyanide, and enough of it will make a pulse oximeter read a healthy man as hypoxic.
Not yet investigated
Sold as a cancer cure. The active ingredient is metabolised to cyanide, and enough of it will make a pulse oximeter read a healthy man as hypoxic.
This star is on the map because the show intends to take the question apart properly — the trials, how it is actually tested, whether the thing sold is the thing studied. That work is not done yet, and nothing here should be read as a conclusion. When the investigation is published it will appear on this page.
What we are reading
Gathered for the investigation and not yet written up. Each note says what the paper does and does not show.
A 67-year-old man looked hypoxic under routine anaesthesia. Cardiac and respiratory causes excluded, haemoglobinopathies excluded. He had been taking apricot kernel extract daily for FIVE YEARS; blood analysis confirmed cyanide toxicity, and the free cyanide was interfering with the pulse oximeter itself. Saturations normalised when he stopped. A chronic toxicity from a complementary medicine that presented as a monitoring artefact — which is exactly how these are missed.
Connected on the map
Also in Cancer, found and missed
The letter
The full citation list for each investigation, the studies that didn't make the episode, and any corrections — sent the morning it publishes.
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