STUDY INVALIDATED BY DRUG MIX-UP

Researchers: Ecstasy, Meth Bottles Were Mislabeled

Washington - A prestigious scientific journal is retracting a study about the effects of the drug Ecstasy on the brain because the animals used in the research were given a different drug.

The researchers blamed the error on a labeling mix-up.

Previous studies had reported on the brain hazards of Ecstasy, and the researchers said the problems with their study did not call into question the earlier ones.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University reported in September of last year that key neurons in the brains of squirrel monkeys and baboons were damaged when the animals were given doses of Ecstasy that mimicked those often taken by users of the drug during all-night dance parties.

The researchers said the study raised questions about whether Ecstasy - also known as MDMA - might hasten the onset of Parkinson's disease, a disorder triggered by the permanent loss of dopamine-producing nerve cells. It was those nerve cells that were reported to have been damaged by Ecstasy in the Johns Hopkins research.

In retracting the story, the journal Science said Friday that the researchers discovered that labels on drugs supplied to them by an outside company were incorrect and the animals had actually been given a different drug, methamphetamine.

Methamphetamine would be expected to produce the brain damage seen in the animals, the researchers said in their retraction.

Ecstasy is methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Both are forms of amphetamine but with different added chemicals and chemical action, said researcher Dr. Una McCann.

She explained that a bottle of MDMA and a bottle of methamphetamine were delivered to the lab the same day, from the same supplier, for different research purposes.

When the researchers had trouble duplicating some of their work, they began to suspect problems, she explained. They had the bottle labeled methamphetamine analyzed by three labs and all reported it was pure MDMA - and the brains of two animals that had died following the experiment were found to contain methamphetamine, not MDMA.