Sep 14, 2009 7:48 pm US/Pacific
Source Of Drug Discovered In Orinda Teen's Death
ORINDA (CBS 5) ―
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Joseph Loudon, the 16-year old Orinda resident who was found dead at a house party.
CBS
The Loudon family has insisted all along that 16-year-old Joseph did not use drugs the night he died. Now a revelation about where that drug came from seems to prove them right.
"We want to solve this mystery," Joe's uncle Tom Payne told CBS 5 Investigates in August, as he sought answers to how his nephew died at a teen party at a home in Orinda one night in May. A key question: Where did a drug found in his system, Papaverine, come from?
The drug is designed to treat problems involving blood flow, including, in its injectable form, erectile dysfunction in men. And it is something UCSF professor of clinical pharmacy Steve Kayser described as: "Very uncommon."
The Contra Costa Coroner blamed the drug, in part, for Loudon's death, saying in its autopsy report that Loudon likely choked on his own vomit, "due to alcohol and Papaverine ingestion."
But it now appears, all of that may be wrong. Why? Because tissues from Loudon's body were donated. And now the transplant bank that handled that donation says its personnel actually administered the Papaverine to Loudon after his death.
In a letter to Loudon's mother obtained by CBS 5 Investigates, the Northern California Transplant Bank said "blood samples used by the coroner's office were provided by the bank, and those samples were drawn after the introduction of Papaverine."
The discovery means Joseph Loudon did not take the drug at all. And for his family: "We've been on a roller coaster," Payne said. "We really feel like our emotions have been played with, we've been dragged through the mud on this thing and we are really really angry."
Also in the letter, the transplant bank's executive director, Allen Brown, told Loudon's mother, "We take full responsibility for this finding. I want to formally apologize."
Joe's uncle wants to know, why did it take so long? "Somebody sat there for months knowing this. And it took a television broadcast to come out and to challenge them."
The transplant bank's director didn't return a call from CBS 5 Investigates. A spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff would only say the coroner's office is making inquiries based on this new information.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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