Oct 11, 2025 05:44 PM
(This post was last modified: Oct 11, 2025 05:46 PM by C C.)
https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/insi...ers-blood/
INTRO: It started as a rumor too grotesque to believe. People, mostly young, poor, and desperate, were injecting each other’s blood to get high. In places like Fiji, that rumor has become a national crisis.
Public health officials call it “bluetoothing.” Others know it as “flashblooding” or “hotspotting.” It works like this: one user injects a drug like methamphetamine or heroin, then draws a syringe of their own drug-laced blood and passes it to the next person — who injects it, hoping for a secondhand high.
“It’s not just needles they’re sharing — they’re sharing the blood,” said Kalesi Volatabu, executive director for Drug Free Fiji, in an interview with the BBC.
The practice is unimaginably risky. There is the risk from blood type mismatch and a single drop of blood from an HIV-positive person can contain tens of thousands of viral particles. “It’s the perfect way of spreading H.I.V.,” said Catherine Cook, executive director of Harm Reduction International, in the New York Times. “It’s a wake-up call for health systems and governments.” (MORE - details)
INTRO: It started as a rumor too grotesque to believe. People, mostly young, poor, and desperate, were injecting each other’s blood to get high. In places like Fiji, that rumor has become a national crisis.
Public health officials call it “bluetoothing.” Others know it as “flashblooding” or “hotspotting.” It works like this: one user injects a drug like methamphetamine or heroin, then draws a syringe of their own drug-laced blood and passes it to the next person — who injects it, hoping for a secondhand high.
“It’s not just needles they’re sharing — they’re sharing the blood,” said Kalesi Volatabu, executive director for Drug Free Fiji, in an interview with the BBC.
The practice is unimaginably risky. There is the risk from blood type mismatch and a single drop of blood from an HIV-positive person can contain tens of thousands of viral particles. “It’s the perfect way of spreading H.I.V.,” said Catherine Cook, executive director of Harm Reduction International, in the New York Times. “It’s a wake-up call for health systems and governments.” (MORE - details)