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Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith Rogers.

Today, a new threat in the drug supply, Meditomedeen.

Dr. Jordan Nahas-Vigon is an addiction medicine

specialist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital. She talks to Dr. Josh Starstein about this chemical,

what it's doing in the drug supply, the terrible withdrawal that it causes, and how it's

threatening public health. Let's listen. Dr. Nejas-Vigone, thank you so much for joining me here on public

health on call. Thank you for having me, Josh. We're going to talk about metatomedeen, but before we

get to that new drug that is appearing in cities across the country, I want to have you

introduce yourself to our audience. Sure. I am a

primary care doctor. I work at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and I do general primary care

as well as specializing in addiction medicine. So that includes seeing patients in clinic who have substance use disorders and seeing

patients in the hospital, both on our addiction medicine unit and on the addiction medicine

console unit. So you take care of a lot of patients with addiction patients who may be using

actively drugs like fentanyl, for example?

Yes, we see it a lot.

And so when did you first hear of metatomede?

So I think that I first heard about it maybe back in the summer of 2024, but it quickly

sort of went in one ear and out the other. I did not think of it as a lasting concern. In October of 24, we admitted a patient to our addiction medicine unit who had the worst opioid withdrawal I'd ever seen.

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