[RC] Polo Ponie s/Biodyl/toxic pois oning from 'infected batch'? - jennifer simpson
>From today's Palm Beach Post -
"...investigators are following a report in the La Nacion newspaper of Buenos Aires where a captain of the Lechuza Caracas polo team said the horses were injected with a vitamin supplement called Biodyl that is not approved for use in the United States, Fagan said. "I will tell you certainly screening for Biodyl will be done, and we're trying to get some answers about Biodyl," Fagan said. The Florida Animal Diagnostic Lab in Kissimmee is testing samples of the bedding, hay, feed and water collected from Wellington. Fagan said that any medications or supplements that the horses received would show up in the toxicology report. Pulmonary edema is fluid acclimation of the lungs that causes respiratory failure. It can be caused when the heart is unable to remove fluids from the lungs. Richard Forfa, who runs the Monocacy Equine Veterinary Associates in Maryland, said pulmonary edema would be a probable effect of toxic poisoning. He said that if Biodyl was injected into the
horses, bacteria likely infected the batch during the manufacturing process. "It probably stayed in there waiting to do something until it got into the appropriate animal," Forfa said. "Once you put it into the horse, the bacteria would release toxins that would get into the blood stream, and those toxins would cause a fever to go up and you'd feel achy. The toxins are very potent and can cause a myriad of symptoms, including very rapid swelling in the lungs and other parts of the body." While Lechuza Caracas team captain Juan Martin Nero told the La Nacion newspaper that Biodyl was used to treat exhaustion and not as a performance enhancer, Louisville-based equine nutrionist Amy Gill doubted his claim. "You would call Biodyl a performance enhancer in that it contains ingredients and nutrients that helps a horse from fatiguing quickly," Gill said. "Certainly vitamin B helps with glucose metabolism, and sure, you would consider it a performance enhancer.""
