USE OF HALLUCINOGENIC DRUG IN STUDY RAISES QUESTIONS

BOSTON -- Medical ethicists are raising objections to a study in
which 100 healthy volunteers were given a powerful hallucinogen in an
effort by scientists to better understand mental illness.

In studies conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health, Yale
University and several other places, test subjects took small doses of
ketamine, also known as "Special K" or the "date rape drug."

Scientists conducting the study said volunteers were carefully
screened for mental illness and signed consent forms that warned of
side effects such as hallucinations and mood changes.

But some critics said the risks of the drug are not fully known and
questioned the ethics of inducing psychotic behavior in healthy people.

"The idea of inducing psychosis, in psychology or psychiatry, is the
worst thing that can happen," said Carl Tishler, an adjunct professor
at Ohio State University. "If you are a cardiologist, do you induce a
heart attack in someone to see what it's like so you can study it?"

Ketamine is a trendy new designer drug used mainly by young people who
pay $20 to $40 a dose. Nationwide, the drug has been connected to at
least one death of a teen-ager who mixed it with heroin; numerous
sexual assaults; and thefts from veterinarians' offices and hospitals.

Often used as a prescription surgical anesthetic for people and
animals, the drug is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It
can cause mild hallucinations, confusion and fear with regular use.
Severe hallucinations are possible with large doses.

The Boston Globe reported Thursday that healthy subjects run the risk
of flashbacks months after using ketamine.

"If this is what they do to normal (people), God help us with the
cognitively impaired," Adil Shamoo, a University of Maryland
bioethicist, told the newspaper.

But scientists say ketamine can help unlock the mysteries of mental
illness, especially schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, by giving
researchers insight into the nature of hallucinations and mood disorders.

The experiments began in the early 1990s and ended more than a year
ago. They were designed to provoke symptoms of schizophrenia in
healthy people during a one-time exposure, said Trey Sunderland,
chairman of the National Institute of Mental Health's review board. He
said the volunteers were screened for mental illness, drug use and
medical problems before being injected with approximately one-
twentieth of an average surgical dose. Some subjects were paid $30 to
$40.

Sunderland said that there is no documentation that ketamine has ever
caused flashbacks in surgical patients and that no volunteers have
complained of side effects from the study.

But Tishler said the project had serious ethical shortcomings and more
research into ketamine's long-term effects is needed. "They're saying
that this is a safe thing, when maybe it's not," he said.