And the winner is. . .

i-49a0614e6c76937b3e7cd49ae84b2904-Propofol structure.jpg

Propofol.

For further information and detailed background, please see our previous post on this injectable anesthetic agent known as propofol or Diprivan®.

This L.A. Times article today also has a concise timeline of the events leading to the death of Michael Jackson

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Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal doctor, told detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department that he had been treating Jackson for insomnia for about six weeks. He had been giving Jackson 50 milligrams of propofol every night using an intravenous line, according to the court records.

But Murray told detectives that he feared Jackson was forming an addiction and began trying to wean the pop star off the drugs. He lowered the dosage to 25 milligrams and mixed it with two other sedatives, lorazepam and midazolam. On June 23, two days before Jackson's death, he administered those two medications and withheld the propofol.

On the morning Jackson died, Murray tried to induce sleep without using propofol, according to the affidavit. He said he gave Jackson valium at 1:30 a.m. When that didn't work, he said, he injected lorazepam intravenously at 2 a.m. At 3 a.m., when Jackson was still awake, Murray administered midazolam.

Over the next few hours, Murray said he gave Jackson various drugs. Then at 10:40 a.m., Murray administered 25 milligrams of propofol after Jackson repeatedly demanded the drug, according to the court records.

Holy. Crap.

By DrugMonkey (not verified) on 24 Aug 2009 #permalink

the rebuttal:

"Much of what was in the search warrant affidavit is factual," attorney Edward Chernoff said in the statement. "However, unfortunately, much is police theory. Most egregiously, the timeline reported by law enforcement was not obtained through interviews with Dr. Murray, as was implied by the affidavit. Dr. Murray simply never told investigators that he found Michael Jackson at 11:00 a.m. not breathing. He also never said that he waited a mere 10 minutes before leaving to make several phone calls. In fact, Dr. Murray never said that he left Michael Jackson's room to make phone calls at all."

By DrugMonkey (not verified) on 25 Aug 2009 #permalink