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Report of Ecstasy Drug's Great Risks Is Retracted
(Donald G. McNeil, Jr., New York Times, September 6, 2003)
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 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." [COMMENT by Lorenzo: This was no "mistake." In my opinion, it was scientific fraud, pure and simple. I now question ALL research coming from Johns Hopkins. Any institution that continues to employ people like Ricaurte does not deserve the trust and financial support of American taxpayers. Hopefully, Congress will investigate the shoddy scientific research practices of this institution and withdraw all of their fedreral funding.] . . . 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. . . . If a typical Ecstasy dose killed 20 percent of those who took it, the critics said, no one would use it recreationally. . . . 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.

posted by LoZo 2:16 PM