LAB MIX-UP INVALIDATES 'ECSTASY' DRUG RESEARCH

Animals Were Given Methamphetamine by Mistake

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University who last year published a
frightening and controversial report suggesting that a single
evening's use of the illicit drug "ecstasy" could cause permanent
brain damage and Parkinson's disease are retracting their research,
saying the drug they used in their experiments wasn't ecstasy after
all.

The researchers actually used methamphetamine, and they blamed the
error on a labeling mix-up.

The retraction, to be published in Friday's issue of the journal
Science, has reignited a smoldering and sometimes angry debate over
the risks and benefits of the drug, also known as MDMA.

The drug is popular at all-night raves and other venues for its
ability to reduce inhibitions. But some studies have indicated that
the pills can at least temporarily damage neurons that use the
mood-altering brain chemical serotonin. Some users have also
experienced high fevers, which rarely have proven fatal.

Last year's research, involving monkeys and baboons, purported to show
that three modest doses of ecstasy -- the amount a person might take
during a one-night rave -- could cause serious damage to another part
of the brain: neurons that use the brain chemical dopamine.

Two of 10 animals died quickly after their second or third dose of the
drug, and two others were too sick to take the third dose. Six weeks
later, dopamine levels in the surviving animals were still down 65
percent. That led Hopkins team leader George Ricaurte and his
colleagues to conclude that users were playing Russian roulette with
their brains.

People who say ecstasy has therapeutic potential, including a number
of scientists and doctors who believe it may be useful in treating
post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychiatric conditions,
attacked the study. They noted that the drug was given in higher doses
than people commonly take and was administered by injection, not by
mouth. They wondered why large numbers of users weren't dying or
growing deathly ill from the drug, as the animals did, and why no
previous link had ever been made between ecstasy and Parkinson's disease.

The answer, scientists write in their retraction, is that because
vials were mislabeled, all but one of the animals were injected with
methamphetamine, or "speed," which is known to damage the dopamine
system. The researchers said they discovered the mistake when
follow-up tests gave conflicting results, and they offered evidence
that the tubes were mislabeled by the supplier, identified by sources
as Research Triangle Institute of North Carolina.

The error has renewed charges that government-funded scientists, and
Ricaurte in particular, have been biased in their assessment of
ecstasy's risks and potential benefits.

Rick Doblin, president of MAPS, which funds studies on therapeutic
uses of mind-altering drugs and is seeking permission to conduct human
tests of MDMA, said even the evidence of serotonin system damage is
weak.

Una McCann, one of the Hopkins scientists, said she regretted the role
the false results may have played last year as Congress and the Drug
Enforcement Administration debated how to deal with ecstasy abuse.

But both she and Ricaurte emphasized Friday that the retraction had
not changed their feelings about the overall danger of taking ecstasy.

"I still wouldn't recommend it to anybody," McCann said.