$11 Million Awarded to Family of Woman Who Died After Taking Kratom

TUESDAY, Aug. 1, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- The family of a mother of four who collapsed and died while cooking breakfast has been awarded $11 million in a wrongful death lawsuit.

The cause of death for Krystal Talavera, 39, involved the opioid-like herb known as kratom. Talavera was taking kratom for pain management, NBC News reported. The lawsuit had alleged that the herb's distributor, Grow LLC, had marketed the product as an all-natural supplement.

Talavera, who lived in Florida, died in June 2021. Her death was due to "acute mitragynine intoxication," according to the Palm Beach County Coroner. Mitragynine is one of two primary chemical compounds found in kratom, NBC News reported. At high concentrations, the substance can cause sedation, nausea, vomiting, addiction, difficult breathing, and death.

Kratom does not have U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval, but is sold online and at convenience stores, NBC News reported. Some states have banned it. The FDA has warned of the risk for liver toxicity and seizures when taking it.

"Most kratom users don't realize how unregulated it is whenever they're using it," Peter Grinspoon, M.D., a primary care physician and cannabis specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told NBC News. "At the same time, I do think it's really sad how desperate people are because we're undertreating chronic pain and we're undertreating addiction and a lot of this is just really coming out of people's sheer desperation."

Science on kratom's benefits is inconclusive, and a lack of regulation also means the substance as it is now sold may be contaminated, NBC News reported. In 2016, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency even attempted to temporarily ban the substance.

No solid scientific evidence proves kratom to be effective at pain relief or better at treating substance use disorder than current drugs, C. Michael White, M.D., head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, told NBC News. While kratom may help relieve pain for those with opioid addiction, others with chronic pain should avoid it because it is addictive, White noted.

About 1.7 million people ages 12 years and older used kratom in 2021, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Most did not have life-threatening side effects or die. About 80 percent of kratom-related deaths involved a history of substance misuse, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

NBC News Article