Toxicologist Eka Kurdadze on BBC investigation: no evidence of chemical weapon use during protests

Eka Kurdadze, the head of the toxicology department at the First University Clinic, on Wednesday said that during the last November-December protests, no patients were admitted with poisoning-related issues, and no records in other clinics confirm such cases.

Kurdadze responded to claims by the BBC suggesting that law enforcement used prohibited chemical weapons during the dispersal of protests, emphasising that no clinical evidence supports this assertion.

“During the period when these protests were taking place, not a single patient was officially admitted to our clinic, and in other clinics, there is officially not a single toxicologist’s record confirming that this was a poisoning-related problem”, she said.

The toxicologist highlighted that diagnosing exposure to a chemical substance required individual patient assessment and laboratory tests.

“As you know, a specialist must assess a specific patient at a specific location, considering their complaints, and if any specific or non-specific laboratory tests exist, conclusions should be drawn based on them”, she noted.

She clarified that general speculation about the type or effects of a substance was not a valid diagnostic method and stressed that no such cases were recorded in her clinic or elsewhere.

“Generally speaking, discussing what a substance can do and what effects it may cause can involve many topics, but determining exactly what substance we were dealing with is not simple diagnostically. Therefore, I have no information in this regard, because I have not personally seen a single patient, and I can say openly that none of us, as toxicologists, issued such a diagnosis in any case”, Kurdadze concluded.