So what about the aspirin overdose? Was this some public demonstration against Paula Cook’s sex tape accusation? Was this a cry for help, or maybe even a suicide attempt?  Is aspirin toxicity even dangerous?

Well, some of these questions may never be answered, but aspirin can definitely be dangerous.  Toxic levels of aspirin occur starting at doses around 150 mg/kg of body weight.  For Fantasia, this would probably be somewhere around 9000 mg, or 25 regular strength tablets or 18 extra strength tablets.   The symptoms she might have experienced that prompted her to seek medical attention would typically be nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain, sleepiness, dizziness, and/or ringing in her ears.  Severely toxic patients experience seizures, brain swelling, and respiratory failure.   Aspirin toxicity is treated fairly easily with activated charcoal and sodium bicarbonate, but some cases are still lethal — about 2%.   For more general info on aspirin poisoning, see the wikipedia article.

It has been reported in the British newspaper The Sun that Brittany Murphy may have succombed to an addiction to pain killers, something we’ve heard before in the news this year.  Apparently Murphy has had a few plastic surgery procedures that have resulted in prescriptions for pain killers including Vicodin, a drug also known to be abused by Michael Jackson.  Murphy was rumored to have been fired from a recent movie production due to her erratic behavior, and friends of Murphy have made statements substantiating an addiction to pain meds and have expressed concern that something like this would happen.

Could something as innocent as a Vicodin overdose have caused Brittany’s death?  Sure.  All we know is that she was found in a state of cardiac arrest when paramedics arrived at her home.  Cardiac arrest can happen after a respiratory arrest, which can be caused by an overdose of these type of pain killers.  Vicodin also contains acetaminophen (Tylenol), which in large doses can cause metabolic derangements that can lead to electrolyte imbalance, cardiac arrhythmias, and cardiac arrest.

I guess we’ll just have to wait for the autopsy report and toxicology analysis to find out — sounds like something we heard this summer…..