Dr. Craig Slattery

Now, we're going to move to a fashionable detox treatment known as Cambo, which has resulted in the death of a man in the UK.

This involves using a drug made from the poisonous skin of an Amazonian tree frog.

This treatment is being offered in Ireland and in the UK.

It is explicitly banned, though, in countries including Australia.

Dr. Craig Slattery joins me now, Assistant Professor of Regulatory Affairs and Toxicology at UCD.

Craig, you're very welcome to the programme.

Good morning.

Morning, Clare.

How are you?

I'm good.

Listening to this treatment, it is extraordinary how it works.

So the skin is burnt and then this frog poison is applied.

Is that how it works?

Yeah.

No, I have to say, I've done a first-hand experience.

So what seems to be the procedure as it's framed is, as you say, the skin is damaged.

So the way that that's done is

typically a kind of an incense stick, a burning incense stick is used to make little small burns on the skin to damage the skin basically in pharmaceuticals we talk about a transdermal delivery.

So it's basically to remove the protection of the skin so that when this

And as they say, it's a frog poison, a tree frog poison from Amazonian South America.