Jackson Nurse to Michael: "This Is Not Safe Medicine"
Pool Photographer/Getty Images; AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Was Michael Jackson so desperate to get some shut-eye that he ignored the advice of his nurse when it came to sedatives?
While we won't know definitively for several weeks, when toxicology tests come back, the King of Pop's nutritionist, Cherilyn Lee, is making the media rounds claiming she warned Jackson about certain drugs just five days before his sudden death from cardiac arrest.
In an interview with ABC News, Lee, also a registered nurse, said Jackson was suffering terribly from insomnia and practically begged her for Diprivan, a general anesthetic normally administered in hospitals to knock people out before surgeries and not routinely prescribed to patients with sleeping disorders.
"He said, 'Find me an anesthesiologist—I don't care how much money they want—find me an anesthesiologist to be with me here overnight and give me this IV,' " she recounted.
Lee said the 50-year-old singer complained his body felt cold on one side and hot on the other.
She said she warned him about potentially lethal side effects, including cardiac arrest if combined with other prescription medication.
"I said, 'This is not a safe medicine, please don't take this.'
" 'I look at you, Michael, and I've been around you long enough now, I love you as family. I would not give this to anyone.' "
A practitioner of holistic medicine, Lee said she has worked with many celebrities in L.A. She met Jackson in January and, she says, mainly treated his children for colds.
While Jackson seemed to be adamant about getting his hands on Diprivan, Lee admitted she never actually saw him take the drug. When she asked him what doctor may have prescribed him the sleeping agent in the past, he wouldn't say.
Investigators for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office have confirmed to E! News that they removed prescription medication from Jackson's rented Holmby Hills house where he passed away, but refused to identify the drugs.
Media speculation has focused on Dr. Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal physician, who discovered the superstar unconscious in bed and administered CPR.
Edward Chertoff, an attorney for Murray, issued a statement over the weekend denying that his client gave the entertainer certain painkillers, specifically Demerol and OxyContin (which had been named as possible causes of death in various news reports) but making no mention of Diprivan or its generic name, propofol.
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