Law & Crime: Medical uses and dosages of fentanyl
A Columbus, Ohio doctor is facing 14 counts of murder after prosecutors alleged he used "unwarranted and unprecedented" doses of fentanyl and other drugs with his patients. The defense team for Dr. William Husel argues that his treatment orders were "aggressive," but provided comfort care to the patients.
Fentanyl has become a popular drug to manufacture illegally that has caused overdoses when mixed with other drugs, but it can have an appropriate medical usage in certain settings.
While not commenting directly on Husel's case, Dan Arendt, PhD, told Law & Crime Daily that every situation and every dosage of fentanyl is different depending on the individual patient and is scrutinized by a pharmacist filling the order.
"Fentanyl is really one of the things we think about where in the world of pharmacy we kind of have a phrase that death can be by the decimal, and it's really an acknowledgement of how the smallest differences in a dose with high-risk medications like fentanyl can make a huge, huge difference in terms of what type of impact it's going to have," said Arendt, assistant professor in the University of Cincinnati’s James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy and co-chair of the pain stewardship committee for UC Health.
Watch the Law & Crime Daily segment. (Note: Segment on Husel begins at 8:05 mark, with Arendt's comments beginning around 10:26 mark.)
Arendt also talked about medical fentanyl in a Simply Medicine interview on 55KRC radio. Listen to the interview. (Note: Segment begins around 22:45 mark.)
Featured photo at top courtesy of Unsplash.
Related Stories
Recent advances may speed time to endometriosis diagnosis
March 16, 2026
The average time to clinical diagnosis of endometriosis is nine years. Definitive diagnosis of the disease is difficult, and until recently, has relied on laparoscopic surgery. Now, as Medscape recently reported, novel clinical recommendations, advanced diagnostic tools and research into inflammation and immune responses, are bringing promise that women with endometriosis will find relief sooner and without surgery, according to experts, including Katie Burns, PhD, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine associate professor.
Position-specific helmets may not improve protection
March 16, 2026
Local 12 highlighted a new study by biomedical engineering researchers that looked at how well new football helmets protected players from impacts that can cause concussions.
UC biologist talks about 'pearmageddon'
March 16, 2026
WLWT talks to UC biologist and Department Head Theresa Culley about invasive, nonnative Callery pear trees that are spreading across Ohio forests after they were introduced by landscapers more than 50 years ago.