DRUG-STUDY SUBJECTS GIVEN HALLUCINOGEN WITHOUT WARNING

BOSTON - Researchers trying to find ways to treat schizophrenia gave
more than 100 healthy people a powerful hallucinogen without fully
informing them that the drug could potentially produce psychotic
episodes, The Boston Globe reported today.

The studies involved the drug ketamine, also known as "Special K" and
considered a "date-rape" drug because of the stupor like condition it
can cause.

The Globe said the studies, which began in 1994, involved mentally ill
and healthy people, and participants often were not told they were
being given ketamine specifically to induce conditions similar to
schizophrenia.

Ketamine is available by prescription only, and was approved by the
Food and Drug Administration as an anesthetic. Its primary use is as
an animal tranquilizer.

Healthy people given the drug reported feelings of floating, having a
radio in the ear, tearfulness and sad moods and feelings of "life and
death at the same time," The Globe said.

The possibility of long-term harm from drug-induced psychosis is less
likely in healthy people, but there is a possibility of flashbacks
months later, the report says.

Disclosure is important because there is the possibility of "hooking
someone" on the drug, said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the
University of Pennsylvania.

Experiments were done primarily at the National Institute of Mental
Health at Bethesda, Md., or facilities financed by the institute, such
as medical schools at Yale University and New York University.

The NIMH's institutional review board approved the
studies.

"This is a medicine which is given under close scrutiny for a
short-term basis. There is no repeat long-term exposure," said Dr.
Trey Sunderland, chairman of the review board.

Sunderland said consent forms mention that "you might get an altered
mood, hallucinations . . . The main side effects of the medication are
listed in black and white."