Kansas City Star: Deadly Dose. Fentanyl's littlest victims

By Laura Bauer and Judy L. Thomas

The boy’s tiny lifeless body lay on a bed last year inside a home along The Paseo. 

When Kansas City police officers found 2-year-old Cillian Miller in August 2022, he was wearing only a green T-shirt and was naked from the waist down. Most of his body was covered in a blanket except his feet, which were already discolored, court records show. 

Strewn throughout the home were new and used syringes, glass pipes and “multiple strips of foil with apparent burnt residue.” One pipe was left underneath a partially eaten McDonald’s cheeseburger on the dining room table. And somewhere inside that home, the child came across fentanyl.

Much of the time “people are unaware that a child has gotten into something,” said Dr. Adam Algren, a medical toxicologist at Children’s Mercy. “Nobody sees them get into something. And then, you know, people think that they’re sleeping or taking a nap.

“And it’s not until they don’t wake up that people start to realize that there’s a problem. At that point, it’s often too late.”

Read the full story via The Kansas City Star

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