SCIENTISTS WHO SAID ECSTASY CAUSES BRAIN DAMAGE MIXED UP THE LABELS

A controversial study which claimed that ecstasy users ran a high risk of brain
damage similar to that seen in Parkinson's disease has been withdrawn because
the tests used the wrong drug.

In a short, terse announcement this weekend, the US journal Science revealed
that the team of scientists who made the claim had now admitted that their
findings were completely false because of a labelling error.

The neurologists, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, said
the squirrel monkeys and baboons used in their tests had actually been dosed
with methamphetamine, otherwise known as speed - not the MDMA compound used in
ecstasy. Dr Jon Cole, a leading British expert on ecstasy, said that this
"amazing" admission would cause "irreparable damage" to drugs education in the
UK and increase the scepticism of drugs users about future ill-health warnings.

"Why should any ecstasy user believe scientists after this?" he asked. "Even
what we do know about ecstasy will now be ignored because users are looking for
a reason not to believe us."

The US team had originally claimed that their results, published by Science
last September, proved that even one large dose of ecstasy could cause
permanent brain damage, leading to tremors, stiffness and slowed movements,
similar to Parkinson's.

These claims caused intense controversy among doctors and other scientists, but
were welcomed by anti-drugs campaigners. They stepped up demands for tougher
police action against drug-taking and club culture.

Alan Leshner, the former director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse
and chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
which publishes the journal, claimed this proved that even casual users were
"playing Russian roulette with your brains".

The row had added significance as the study was published three weeks after a
study by senior British psychologists found no evidence that ecstasy use caused
long-term harm, and said many studies criticising the drug were flawed or
inconclusive.

In their retraction, Dr George Ricaurte and four of his colleagues admitted
that they had failed to repeat the results of their ecstasy study.

"Multiple subsequent attempts to reproduce the original findings with
systemically administered doses of MDMA identical to those used in the original
study were also unsuccessful, under a variety of laboratory conditions," they
said.