cannabisnews.com: Report of Ecstasy Drug's Great Risks Is Retracted





Report of Ecstasy Drug's Great Risks Is Retracted
Posted by CN Staff on September 06, 2003 at 09:13:55 PT
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.
Source: New York Times 
A leading scientific journal yesterday retracted a paper it published last year saying that one night's typical dose of the drug Ecstasy might cause permanent brain damage.The monkeys and baboons in the study were not injected with Ecstasy but with a powerful amphetamine, said the journal, Science magazine. The retraction was submitted by the team at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that did the study.
A medical school spokesman called the mistake "unfortunate" but said that Dr. George A. Ricaurte, the researcher who made it, was "still a faculty member in good standing whose research is solid and respected." The study, released last Sept. 27, concluded that a dose of Ecstasy a partygoer would take in a single night could lead to symptoms resembling Parkinson's disease.The study was ridiculed at the time by other scientists working with the drug, who said the primates must have been injected with huge overdoses.Two of the 10 primates died of heat stroke, they pointed out, and another two were in such distress that they were not given all the doses.If a typical Ecstasy dose killed 20 percent of those who took it, the critics said, no one would use it recreationally.In an interview yesterday, Dr. Ricaurte said he realized his mistake when he could not reproduce his own results by giving the drug to monkeys orally. He then realized that two vials his laboratory bought the same day must have been mislabeled: one contained Ecstasy, the other d-methamphetamine.Dr. Ricaurte's laboratory has received millions of dollars from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and has produced several studies concluding that Ecstasy is dangerous. Other scientists accuse him of ignoring their studies showing that typical doses do no permanent damage.At the time Dr. Ricaurte's study was published, it was strongly defended against those critics by Dr. Alan I. Leshner, the former head of the drug abuse institute, who had just become the chief executive officer of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, which publishes Science.Dr. Leshner had testified before Congress that Ecstasy was dangerous, and Dr. Ricaurte's critics accused him of rushing his results into print because a bill known as the Anti-Rave Act was before Congress. The act would punish club owners who knew that drugs like Ecstasy were being used at their dance gatherings.Dr. Ricaurte yesterday called that accusation "ludicrous."His laboratory made "a simple human error," he said. "We're scientists, not politicians." Asked why the vials were not checked first, he answered: "We're not chemists. We get hundreds of chemicals here. It's not customary to check them."Newshawk: Jose Melendez Source: New York Times (NY)Author: Donald G. McNeil Jr.Published:  Septmber 6, 2003Copyright: 2003 The New York Times Co.Contact: letters nytimes.com Website: http://www.nytimes.com/CannabisNews NIDA Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/NIDA.shtml
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Comment #9 posted by 420toker on September 08, 2003 at 07:33:25 PT
it was d-methamphetamine
It was pure d-methamphetamine not dextroamphetamine (dexadrine is an amphetamine molecule attached to a dextrose molecule) this is unnoccuring even in a methlab in the middle of the heartland. When someone makes meth it will always consist of 2 isomers, one is worthless l-methamphetamine the other is what they are after d-methamphetamine. It will at best be a 50/50 mix of each isomer coming out of any commercial meth lab as there is no easy way to seperate them without very complex equipment. So being 100% d-methamphetamine the stuff was easily 50 percent stronger than anything else possible on the street with the best cook in the world.
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Comment #8 posted by BGreen on September 07, 2003 at 15:22:05 PT
FRAUD, LIES and COVERUPS!
In an interview yesterday, Dr. Ricaurte said he realized his mistake when he could not reproduce his own results by giving the drug to monkeys orally. He then realized that two vials his laboratory bought the same day must have been mislabeled: one contained Ecstasy, the other d-methamphetamine.Asked why the vials were not checked first, he answered: "We're not chemists. We get hundreds of chemicals here. It's not customary to check them."If the scientists couldn't tell the difference between two vials of liquid DURING the study, how could this liar "realize" that one was dextromethamphetamine a year later ... without an analysis of the vial in question?A scientists' failure to reproduce their own study means only one thing: The unreplicable study was FLAWED!This is proof that there is a state-sanctioned junk science campaign to add legitimacy to the lies of the drug warriors.The Rev. Bud Green
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Comment #7 posted by Max Flowers on September 07, 2003 at 11:31:36 PT
American psychedelic research
This proves that we can't trust most of the "research" being done on "illicit" drugs within the US system. The exception is MAPS and the one or two others like them, who are doing real science. Science is instantly corrupted when the people doing it have political pressure or any other kind of reason to care what results are going to be shown.This "mistake" is an unacceptable one for high-level research, and I don't believe it was a mistake at all. If it was a real mistake, it is total incompetence. The chemical name on the vial for what they were supposed to be investigating, MDMA, is methylenedioxymethamphetamine. The "mistakenly used" drug is methamphetamine. That's 14 letters LESS in the name. Does anyone really believe that these highly paid scientists, all of them involved, who are paid *specifically* to look carefully at their lab materials as they prepare them, in multiple resrach sessions, ALL mistook one drug for another with that large a difference in the name? Give me a break! Either the MDMA in thge vials was surreptitiously replaced with methamphetamine (in which case there is severe gov't treachery at the highest levels of scientific reseach), or the researchers were coerced into going along with the deception (maybe someone finally stood up to it?)... either way, it is more lying to The People, a huge blight on American science, and a damaging blow to the credibility of our scientific research.REMOVE ALL BARRIERS TO TRUE PSYCHEDELIC RESEARCH!!MF
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Comment #6 posted by Lehder on September 06, 2003 at 21:57:14 PT
speed freaks
I have read about designer drugs that induced parkinson's disease or related nerve disorders, and i can well imagine that perhaps bootleg speed with many adulterants and aromatic carcinogens would do the same. But pharmaceutical speed? Sure, the doses in this "experiment" may have been extreme, but still, speed has been around since some Aryan chemist invented it about a hundred years ago and I have never heard of either scientific tests or even the vast social experiments with speed leading to parkinsons. There's a lot more dirt and deceit to this "study" than even these newly penitent authors are admitting. But it's not worth a second more of my time.
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on September 06, 2003 at 18:18:19 PT
One must wonder
Maybe there was fraud, and this is a coverup. It sounds kind of strange. Our grant is to study Ecstasy. Oops we used speed instead. How can that just happen?
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Comment #4 posted by E_Johnson on September 06, 2003 at 18:15:56 PT
Yes
Now is a good time to go after him. His monkeys have come home to roost, so to speak.
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Comment #3 posted by freedom fighter on September 06, 2003 at 17:05:02 PT
Millions of $$$$$$$$$$
and they did'nt know what drug they were injecting???? Heck, it's like taxpayers paying toliet seat that are made of gold.. or like 99 cents hammer worth 100,000 grand. Or maybe, the funny boys been swallowing the go-pills?, while injecting this "unknown" drug in unknown amount in ratsOOps, I mean, monkies...all at taxpayer's expense!What I really want to know is what the Congress is going to do about it? NO child will believe anything coming from these people..pazff
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Comment #2 posted by Jose Melendez on September 06, 2003 at 12:00:53 PT
E_J
Didn't you quit AAAS because of Leshner in the first place?http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/11/thread11229.shtml#28
Now I am resigning!!!! from AAAS
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Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on September 06, 2003 at 09:21:22 PT
Leshner should be fired next
I'm going to rejoin the AAAS and agitate to get Alan Leshner fired.
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