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Your Brain on Bad Science
LA Weekly ^ | SEPTEMBER 12, 2003 | Judith Lewis

Posted on 09/12/2003 10:42:48 AM PDT by MrLeRoy

Not everyone was surprised this past weekend when Dr. George A. Ricaurte of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine published a retraction in the journal Science of an earlier paper asserting that MDMA, a.k.a. Ecstasy, negatively affected dopamine function in two species of nonhuman primates. Writing with four other authors, including his wife, Una D. McCann, Ricaurte admitted that “the drug used to treat all but one animal . . . came from a bottle that contained d-methamphetamine [a known dopamine toxin] instead of the intended drug, racemic MDMA.” Ricaurte et al. blamed the lab for mislabeling the two drugs, but other experts in the field have raised questions about studies involving Ricaurte before.

According to some scientists, Ricaurte, who gets substantial grant money from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), has often omitted data that might undermine his case that even low or occasional doses of MDMA can cause brain damage — an argument that has been used to halt potentially significant research into MDMA’s therapeutic applications.

Rick Doblin, director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), maintains that Ricaurte’s reporting errors date back to at least the mid-’80s, when Ricaurte began conducting “no-effect” level studies on rats and monkeys to determine MDMA’s lowest toxic dose. In one study for which Doblin helped acquire the monkeys, Ricaurte “started out administering 2.5 milligrams per kilogram given every two weeks for eight doses,” Doblin explains. Finding no evidence of brain damage, Ricaurte increased the dose to 5 milligrams per kilogram — two to three times higher than the equivalent human therapeutic or recreational dose. This time the monkeys’ brains showed signs of damage to their serotonin neurons. But when Ricaurte published his results in 1988, he focused solely on MDMA’s toxicity, omitting any data establishing a safe dose of the drug.

Later, Ricaurte collaborated on an “L-tryptophan challenge” study with scientists at Yale University. The subjects for the study, who were recruited from an earlier study conducted while Ricaurte was at Stanford in the mid-’80s, were flown to Connecticut from the West Coast and given intravenous L-tryptophan — the amino acid present in large amounts in dairy products and turkey, which many people take to help them sleep. He then submitted the jet-lagged and sedated subjects to intelligence and memory tests.

Still, the subjects performed admirably. In a letter to Doblin, Charles A. Opsahl, a psychologist in Connecticut who evaluated the results, wrote that “most subjects evaluated had IQ scores in the above average range or higher.” There were, however, some dips in memory performance tests, which Opsahl suggested may have been “related to travel fatigue, being in a new environment, or being stressed in some way . . .”

But when the researchers, including Ricaurte, reported on the study in 1992, Doblin was stunned: The published results made no mention of those alternative explanations. Also absent was any mention of where the subjects came from: According to Dr. Charles Grob, a psychiatrist at Harbor UCLA Medical Center who secured the first FDA approval to study MDMA in humans and has critiqued Ricaurte’s work extensively in print, the subjects had already been shown in an earlier study to have low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which could contribute to neurological function. “He recruited from the low end of the spectrum,” says Grob, “and never admitted his pre-selection bias.

“This is typical of Ricaurte’s research,” says Grob. “Methodological flaws, sleight of hand, sensationalizing to the media.” Not only has Ricaurte’s work obstructed serious research into the therapeutic potential of MDMA, “but it’s distracted us from the real risks associated with MDMA — such as hyperthermia and cardiac arrhythmia — that we should be studying.”

Even the infamous NIDA post card featuring positron emission topography (PET) scans Ricaurte performed in 1998, comparing a slice of serotonin-rich brain to a depleted one, was based on distorted evidence, says Doblin. “The way to do [that post card] would have been to pick the person closest to the middle of each group — users and nonusers — and compare the two. Instead, they picked people at the extremes. They did it for dramatic effect.”

Ricaurte was returning from Switzerland and could not be reached for comment, but he has insisted that the retraction of the dopamine study has no bearing on his earlier research. Last year he told the Weekly, “There are not many drugs of abuse that have the potential to actually damage brain cells. MDMA is uniquely dangerous.” Doblin has long insisted just the opposite — that pure MDMA not only is uniquely benign but has enormous potential for therapeutic applications.

Doblin is now hoping Ricaurte’s retraction will help jump-start the MAPS-funded and FDA-approved study of MDMA’s potential in treating post-traumatic stress disorder, which has been stalled by controversy. “What’s happened is that Ricaurte has stopped research into therapeutic effects of MDMA because he’s become a spokesperson for the whole scientific effort. His entire career is now based on the presumption that one dose of MDMA is dangerous.”


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: badscience; wodlist
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1 posted on 09/12/2003 10:42:49 AM PDT by MrLeRoy
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To: *Wod_list; jmc813
Wod_list (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/involved?group=124) ping
2 posted on 09/12/2003 10:43:11 AM PDT by MrLeRoy (The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. - Jefferson)
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To: Wolfie; vin-one; WindMinstrel; philman_36; Beach_Babe; jenny65; AUgrad; Xenalyte; Bill D. Berger; ..
WOD Ping
3 posted on 09/12/2003 10:47:07 AM PDT by jmc813 (Check out the FR Big Brother 4 thread! http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/943368/posts)
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To: MrLeRoy
I use MDMA on my plants. Dissolve two teaspoons into a gallon of mushroom tea and spray it across the leaves and they will grow far quicker than anything Miracle Grow ever thought about. Produces bigger fruit, too. If you put the fruit into a juicer, the juice will cure baldness.

It also cured my dog's hip dysplasia. I made a paste of MDMA and covered his hip twice a day for a week and *voila*, my vet lost a patient.

My daughter had a hard time concentrating in school, so I put a teaspoon of MDMA in her Instant Breakfast every morning and now she is a straight A student and has scholarship offers from 25 universities.

If John Ritter would have had some MDMA on hand last night, he could have rubbed some across his chest and healed the rip in his aorta.

A little MDMA on the coax cable will do wonders for your Direct TV signal and will allow you to get HBO for free.

4 posted on 09/12/2003 10:53:54 AM PDT by Skooz (Exterminate Terrorist Vermin)
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To: MrLeRoy
might undermine his case that even low or occasional doses of MDMA can cause brain damage — an argument that has been used to halt potentially significant research into MDMA’s therapeutic applications.

You'd be hard pressed to convince me that MDMA's therapeutic applications outweigh the significant risks asssociated with its use. Setting aside WOD arguments, MDMA is just regular amphetamine souped up with methyl groups for greater absorption into the system. You won't find too many people claiming that regular amphetamine use is a healthy behavior.

I'm all for debunking the mythical horrors of LSD and pot, but MDMA ain't just a love drug. According to my pharmacology professor (certainly no drug warrior himself), the drugs to avoid were the stimulants. Simply put, the risks far outweigh the rewards.

5 posted on 09/12/2003 10:54:15 AM PDT by Mr. Bird
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To: MrLeRoy
From the Guardian UK (exceprts):

ECSTASY BLUNDER 'WILL ERODE TRUST'

A flawed scientific study which suggested that the "ravers' drug" ecstasy could lead to Parkinson's disease may have damaged the trust of young people in research, one of Britain's leading scientists warned yesterday. Colin Blakemore, of Oxford University and the chairman of the British Association which is holding its annual festival in Salford, said a paper published in the US journal Science last year - and formally withdrawn in the same journal today - had contained errors that should have been spotted before publication.

The research said 40% of the animals had died or been close to death after "weekend raver" doses of ecstasy.

"Clearly 40% of teenagers do not die every weekend. It should have been spotted by any decent refereeing process," he said.

"But what worries me most about this paper is that I suspect it will have an entirely negative effect on the attitude of young people to the evidence that they read about drug risks," he said.

"One has to say: how was this paper reviewed? Was the fact that 'anti-rave' legislation was being discussed in Congress at the time a factor in the deciding whether to publish this paper? Who were the referees?"

6 posted on 09/12/2003 10:56:38 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: Mr. Bird
You'd be hard pressed to convince me that MDMA's therapeutic applications outweigh the significant risks asssociated with its use.

Do you think research should be done?

7 posted on 09/12/2003 10:59:27 AM PDT by MrLeRoy (The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. - Jefferson)
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To: Skooz
A little MDMA on the coax cable will do wonders for your Direct TV signal and will allow you to get HBO for free.

What's the point of this moronic twaddle? (I hope you didn't think it was funny.)

8 posted on 09/12/2003 11:00:24 AM PDT by MrLeRoy (The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. - Jefferson)
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To: MrLeRoy
Is MDMA (Ecstasy) the same as the MDA I recall hearing about from 20 years ago?
9 posted on 09/12/2003 11:01:04 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed
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To: MrLeRoy
Oh, chill out. I thought it was funny, in a silly sort of way.

Stop taking everything so seriously. You still get your point across.

10 posted on 09/12/2003 11:02:51 AM PDT by Skooz (Exterminate Terrorist Vermin)
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To: MrLeRoy
I wonder where SinFLA disappeared to, no posts in 1.5 weeks.
11 posted on 09/12/2003 11:04:05 AM PDT by xrp
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To: Wolfie
"I suspect it will have an entirely negative effect on the attitude of young people to the evidence that they read about drug risks," he said.

Another victory for the War On Some Drugs.

12 posted on 09/12/2003 11:04:09 AM PDT by MrLeRoy (The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. - Jefferson)
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To: MrLeRoy
Do you think research should be done?

Sure, but at what point will the MDMA supporters finally acknowledge the dangers? It's been around for 30 years, and the only "therapeutic" application anyone claims is that it creates feelings of good will that can help in marriage counseling or other similar endeavors.

MDMA proponents cannot provide one empirical study that shows objective benefits of MDMA use. For me, saying "who cares if it destroys my serotonin receptors as long as my wife and I stay together" is not adequate defense of its use.

If anyone can point me to a study that is more than just a screen for its recreational use, I'd like to see it.

13 posted on 09/12/2003 11:06:08 AM PDT by Mr. Bird
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To: Beelzebubba
Is MDMA (Ecstasy) the same as the MDA I recall hearing about from 20 years ago?

No. They are different drugs and produce different effects in the user. I think a molecular diagram would show some similarites, though.

14 posted on 09/12/2003 11:06:18 AM PDT by Skooz (Exterminate Terrorist Vermin)
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To: Mr. Bird
That's like saying that ethyl alocohol is just the same as methyl alcohol except for having two carbons and the attached hydroxl groups. Relatively minor changes in physical chemistry can make a huge difference if how they affect the body's chemical systems.

From what I've read, this substance has been known for a fairly long time, and was used successfully in psychological therapy before it was banned by the government due to its potential for abuse.
15 posted on 09/12/2003 11:09:53 AM PDT by -YYZ- (This message has been brought to you by the voice of reason, which nobody wants to hear)
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To: Mr. Bird
Do you think research should be done?

Sure,

Good.

but at what point will the MDMA supporters finally acknowledge the dangers?

Dr. Charles Grob did so in the article.

16 posted on 09/12/2003 11:10:46 AM PDT by MrLeRoy (The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. - Jefferson)
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To: Mr. Bird
Um, ya got any references to show that it destroys serotonin receptors when used in a therapeutic setting (or at all, for that matter)? I don't have a dog in this fight - I've never used the stuff either recreationally or therapeutically. I did do a bunch of acid many years back, which also affects serotonin levels, and it doesn't seem to have done me any permanent harm.
17 posted on 09/12/2003 11:13:18 AM PDT by -YYZ- (This message has been brought to you by the voice of reason, which nobody wants to hear)
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To: -YYZ-
That's like saying that ethyl alocohol is just the same as methyl alcohol except for having two carbons and the attached hydroxl groups. Relatively minor changes in physical chemistry can make a huge difference if how they affect the body's chemical systems.

You are correct, but the modification of the methamphetamine compound merely increases the effective dosage. The thing that happens when you add methyl groups to the methamphetamine compound is you increase the amount of the drug absorbed into the brain. It's actually an ingenious method of attacking the blood/brain barrier.

18 posted on 09/12/2003 11:24:39 AM PDT by Mr. Bird
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To: Mr. Bird
I must admit, you sound like you know more about these things than I, but everything I've heard about these two drugs suggests that the users have radically different reactions to them. Methamphetamine is essentially just a stimulant, while MDMA seems to produce quite different reactions, does it not?
19 posted on 09/12/2003 11:29:03 AM PDT by -YYZ-
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To: -YYZ-
Um, ya got any references to show that it destroys serotonin receptors when used in a therapeutic setting (or at all, for that matter)? I don't have a dog in this fight

No dog for me, for that matter. I have taken it, and quite enjoyed it. I preferred acid in my day, though. My knowledge on the subject comes from pharmacology classes in the early 90's. Unfortunately, I do not have the texts to back my claims up, so I will search the web. I concede that drastic changes in the conventional wisdom may have changed in the past decade, but I haven't heard that.

That said, there should be no difference in effect on the brain whether it is used therapeutically or recreationally. We may be talking about degrees of magnitude but not of the mechanisms of action.

20 posted on 09/12/2003 11:29:18 AM PDT by Mr. Bird
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