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At this time, the CDC recommends that people not consume kratom in any form because it could be contaminated with salmonella:
An outbreak of 28 salmonella infections in 20 states has been linked to kratom products, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Tuesday. Though no deaths have been reported, 11 people have been hospitalized.
[...] California had the highest number of salmonella cases (three). North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Utah each reported two cases while Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, New York, South Carolina and Tennessee each reported a single case, the CDC found.
Kratom should not be consumed in any form, the CDC said, because the source of salmonella contamination has not been identified.
Also at The Verge, STAT News, and CBS.
Previously: DEA Welcomes Kratom to the Schedule I List Beginning September 30
The Calm Before the Kratom Ban
FDA Blocks More Imports of Kratom, Warns Against Use as a Treatment for Opioid Withdrawal
FDA Labels Kratom an Opioid
Related: Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MostCynical on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:33AM (1 child)
Those In Power say "it is bad, stop using it"
People keep using it.
Those In Power say "it is as bad as some other things that are very bad, so it is bow Illegal"
People keep using it.
Thos in Power say "it has Bad Things in it now, stop using it"
People wonder.. Who put the Bad Things there?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:23PM
Wikipedia: "M. speciosa is indigenous to Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Papua New Guinea".
Wikipedia: "Most infections are due to ingestion of food contaminated by animal feces; or by human feces, such as by a food service worker at a commercial eatery."
That explains everything.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pipedwho on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:00AM (2 children)
28 over 20 States is not a cluster. It's 20 separate instances, with a couple of overlap. Since Salmonella is pretty much everywhere, it's seems a stretch that the Kratom is the root cause (in any form - ie. pill, leaf, extract, powder, - or however it is packaged).
TFA even mentions that there are 1.4 million Salmonella related cases a year. So, somehow out of these 1.4 million, 28 people had consumed Kratom (in one of many forms according to the article) and there that must be it. Not the under cooked chicken they had earlier, or the salad prepared on the same cutting board as the raw chicken, or whatever other generally unsanitary event took place to have them spraying their guts into toilet while throwing up the rest on the floor in front of it.
This seems like a classic shout out for causation is not equal to correlation. And in this case, I can't even image how you could even establish a correlation without a probability of error asymptotically approaching unity.
Methinks someone is trying to demonise something they don't like. Just saying.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:17PM (1 child)
And then "the authorities" wonder why people ignore them in droves.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday February 22 2018, @01:15AM
I saw a Black man eat it once and he went into a sex-crazed frenzy and later got arrested for attempted rape of White women.
Also, Kratom makes White people laugh manically and jump out third-story windows.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:40AM (6 children)
It's a plant. If it's not cleaned sufficiently, it can carry bacteria, such as salmonella. This is true for any plant, whether Kratom, Broccoli or carrots. This is no more a valid excuse to outlaw Kratom than it is to outlaw all vegetables.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @11:09AM
You don't have to convince me, it's long before time to criminalize all vegetable possession. It was a good start with green herbs, but gateway vegetables in the brassica family just lead to harder vegetables like Solanum tuberosum, before you know it people find themselves addicted to meat, potatoes and two veg. three times a week.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:51PM (4 children)
Broccoli should not be consumed in any form, the CDC said, because the source of salmonella contamination has not been identified.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:59PM (3 children)
Not salmonella. Listeria. And it was identified, in 2016. http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2016/04/03/frozen-broccoli-recalled-due-to-listeria-contamination-risk/ [cbslocal.com]
So yeah, even though it's usually FDA that issues warnings like this, it's actually government doing it's public health job. Nothing to see here, move along.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:17PM (2 children)
In the days between the discovery of listeria cases and the identification of the specific batches of broccoli that caused the illness, they don't recommend that all people in the entire nation stop eating any source of broccoli.
There is something to see here. A campaign being waged against kratom at multiple agencies (FDA, CDC, DEA).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:02PM
Sounds like it might really be effective at getting people off of opioids.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:24PM
I do think you have a point.
But broccoli producers are regulated. They can spot the trend and narrow it down to, "Hey, these people all ate Brand X broccoli. Let's go and require Brand X to test their plant for contamination with Listeria. Oh. Positive. Issue recall. Problem solved." If they were able to narrow down this to a particular source of kratom, and require that supplier to stop supplying, would it be a similar response?
But, like I said, I think you're right that the gov is picking on kratom as a cause celebre.
Separately to the story, I'd like to explore its pharmacology a bit more. Something tells me it's probably more than just coffee but less than fentanyl.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:10AM
So a plant I never have heard before is now considered a health risk to eat? Well, great, I won't have to change my diet one bit! :-)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:20PM (1 child)
Salmonella will die if heated to 148F for 3 minutes. Don't most people consume kratom by steeping it in boiling hot water?
I smell a rat.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:05PM
Wikipedia speaks of mixing it in cocktails, directly chewing the leaves, and a tea-based cocktail (but seems to be a cold tea). And I've seen Kratom capsules https://www.amazon.com/kratom-capsules/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Akratom%20capsules [amazon.com]
Lots of possibility for foodborne contaminations, no boiling used.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:11PM
I'll type it real slow so you'll be sure to understand:
You do not want to get salmonella
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]