JOURNAL RETRACTS ECSTASY DRUG STUDY

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 2002 that key
neurons in the brains of squirrel monkeys and baboons were damaged when the
animals were given doses of ecstasy mimicking those often taken 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 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, which would be expected to produce the brain damage seen in
the animals.