WVU researcher seeks funding for fentanyl test-strip research | West Virginia

Fentanyl is a powerful opioid that is increasingly involved in drug-related deaths. Some harm-reduction programs use the strips to warn drug users of the presence of fentanyl.

“We’re going to look at the positive and negative impact because it might be either way,” said Dr. Judith Feinberg, a professor at the WVU School of Medicine. “People might be safer if they know there’s fentanyl in their drugs, or people who are looking for fentanyl may use this as a way to seek out more dangerous drug doses.”

Feinberg and researcher Jon Zibbel are asking the National Institute on Drug Abuse to fund the research to study a harm-reduction program at Milan Puskar Health Right in Morgantown, as well as a program in North Carolina.

“There is good evidence that when people use these strips and their drugs test positive for fentanyl, they take steps to use more safely and thus reduce their risk of opioid overdose,” said Dr. Robin Pollini, a harm-reduction expert and associate director of WVU’s Injury Control Research Center.

Feinberg said she has heard that the strips are an effective harm-reduction tool, but she is wary of anecdotes.

“If you don’t look systematically, you might hear the positive things from the people that feel that way about it, and you might not hear that people are using it so they can find more fentanyl on the drug market, for example,” she said. “So I think anecdotes always carry that danger. If you don’t look at things systematically, you don’t truly know what’s happening.”

Laura Jones, executive director of Milan Puskar Health Right, said if funding for Feinberg’s research project comes through, the harm-reduction program will collect information about how well people use the strips and whether they change their behavior.

“I hope that we will show that it is, by and large, a useful thing because they are not that expensive,” Feinberg said. “They’re a dollar a strip. And, you know, a dollar is somebody’s life. That isn’t even a decision.”