Last week, I got a heartbreaking call from a woman in Long Island whose sister had died on January 10. She'd been a longtime cocaine user and was hospitalized just before Thanksgiving with an immune-system freakout that the doctors said had been caused by exposure to levamisole.

"It looked like something out of a science-fiction movie," Christine told me. "She'd broken out all over—under her breast, on her stomach, and all over her legs." (A scary-looking photo Christine sent me of her sister in the hospital is below the jump.)

The doctors warned her to stop using cocaine—but she used again, broke out again, and wound up in the hospital again. Then, in early January, she died. Christine talked to her sister the night before she died. "She was having a hard time breathing, she was hoarse."

Christine googled "levamisole" and "cocaine," found my articles about it, and called because she wanted me to get the word out that this shit is still around and still deadly.

Condolences to all.