4 ms·
The article quotes seem inconsistent: "University of Ottawa tested the samples and found that only 87% contained pure epinephrine, while the other 13% had been
by mhandley 4y ago
The article quotes seem inconsistent:
"University of Ottawa tested the samples and found that only 87% contained pure epinephrine, while the other 13% had been 'transformed into extremely poisonous benzoic acid derivatives'"
against
"In fact, no epinephrine was found in the 'after' EpiPen solution samples"
If it's the former, you probably want to use a different EpiPen if you have a choice, but it might still save your life, whereas if it's the latter it's completely useless.
Also they were only flown under a high altitude balloon or on a sounding rocket, so probably didn't get a very high dose of radiation for very long. If you're a pilot and carry an EpiPen on many long-haul flights, wont your EpiPen will get similar exposure?
- novia 4y agoI believe they are saying that any of the epipens that were turned were turned completely. Like, there wasn't an epipen with 87% epinephrine that came back to earth.
- mhandley 4y agoYes, you could read it that way too. If the results are binary like that, it seems like it would need some form of chain reaction to convert all the epinephrine in 13% of the samples, leaving pure ephinephrine in the others.
- yorwba 4y agoThe quotes are about different experimental conditions: 1) pure epinephrine (which returned only 87% pure) and 2) EpiPen solution (which starts out with less than 100% epinephrine and apparently returned with an amount below the detection threshold) Probably some other ingredient of the EpiPen solution reacted with the epinephrine, causing it to degrade faster than the pure stuff.