March 26, 2007

Anna Nicole Smith died from accidental overdose.

MTV.com reports (as well as many other sources) that Anna Nicole Smith died of an accidental overdose.

Six weeks after Anna Nicole Smith's death, the Broward County, Florida, chief medical examiner announced on Monday (March 26) that the former model died of an accidental drug overdose attributed to a combination of prescription drugs that were in her system at the time of her death.

While the accidental overdose is clear, exactly which drugs caused her death is not evident. Broward County Chief Medical Examiner Joshua Perper said Smith had nine different prescription drugs in her system at the time of her death, including three anti-anxiety medications, the antihistamine Benadryl and the drug thought to have been the main culprit in her death, the prescription sleeping medication chloral hydrate.

Perper said the combination of drugs was the likely cause of Smith's death, but there was also evidence that a high fever she had suffered from in the days prior to her overdose was caused by an injection of a "longevity" medication that could have been human-growth hormone, vitamin B-12 or immunoglobulin. He explained that the autopsy revealed evidence that Smith had previously made injections into her buttocks, which showed signs of multiple abscesses, and that an injection she made prior to her trip might have ruptured an abscess and caused an infectious agent to enter her bloodstream.

Anna Nicole Smith