HALLUCINOGEN STUDY SUSPENDED

BOSTON (AP) A federal agency has suspended controversial psychosis
studies after it came under fire for using a powerful hallucinogen on
healthy volunteers and mentally ill patients.

Dr. Steven E. Hyman, head of the National Institute of Mental Health in
Bethesda, Md., has suspended tests on ketamine, known on the streets as
"Special K."

The drug is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use as an
anesthetic, but is sold on the streets as a hallucinogenic.

"We are not going to be funding research that will produce harm," Hyman
said at a meeting of the National Advisory Mental Health Council.

Researchers have given ketamine to people with mental illness and healthy
volunteers to study the biology of psychoses.

"Those (studies) on our campus have stopped," Hyman told The Boston Globe.

Hyman also won approval Friday for a more stringent review of proposed
studies that would induce psychosis or withhold medication from mentally
ill volunteers.

Institute officials said their ketamine studies were suspended for lack of
scientific merit after a review last month, but said no patients had been
harmed.

Some medical ethicists have criticized the studies, saying they are full of
unknown risks pending further research into ketamine's long-term effects.