TreeSloth
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2003
- Messages
- 35
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/15/DD179310.DTL
It'll kill you -- wait, no it won't
Jon Carroll Monday, September 15, 2003
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Let us consider the case of Dr. George Ricaurte, still a "member in good standing" of the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine despite recent events.
Ricaurte has long been a fighter in the War Against Some Drugs. Much the way some universities are able to find positive things to say about a drug in studies funded by the manufacturer of that drug, so is Ricaurte able to say negative things about recreational drugs in studies funded by the WOSD. Science is a lot easier when you know your conclusions ahead of time.
Last year, Ricaurte issued a study saying that the amount of ecstasy commonly taken by a user in one night could lead to permanent brain damage and symptoms resembling those of Parkinson's disease.
The study was met with some skepticism even when it was released. According to Donald J. McNeil, writing in the New York Times, "the study was ridiculed at the time by other scientists working on the drug, who said the primates (used in the study) must have been injected with massive overdoses. Two of the 10 primates died of heatstroke, they pointed out, and another two were in such distress that they were not given all the doses. If a typical ecstasy dose killed 20 percent of those who used it, critics said, no one would use it recreationally."
Yeah, word would get around. Thirty or so dead bodies at a rave -- people would talk.
It was noted that Ricaurte's study was published just in time for him to testify to Congress in favor of a proposed law called the Anti-Rave Act. (Thank God there's no Anti-Rant Act, or I'd be out of a job.)
Well, now it turns out that the drug Ricaurte gave to his baboons was not ecstasy but a powerful amphetamine called d-methamphetamine. The admission of error was published in the journal Science.
Ricaurte called the mistake "a simple human error."
"We're scientists, not politicians," he said, and later: "We're not chemists. We get hundreds of chemicals here. It is not customary to check them. "
OK, slow down. Read that again. We get hundreds of chemicals in here, in this scientific laboratory where we analyze the effect of chemicals on primate subjects, and we do not bother to check the chemicals. Nope, we just read the labels, get out the syringes, and hello monkey want some whatever-this-is?
Doesn't that give you faith in science? I mean, I knew a guy in London like that once, he'd pretty much inject anything into his body, but he died a long time ago. Maybe there's a lesson there.
The whole thing is so loony. The government takes its usual moralistic approach to drug research, funding projects to prove that bad drugs are bad, and it prevents the funding of studies that do not start with any conclusions.
It may be that drugs like ecstasy and marijuana have some medical uses. There is already some evidence that this is true, but there's been no follow- up because the government will not allow it. The government is afraid of the answers, so it refuses to ask the questions.
Meantime, lapdogs like this Ricaurte dude get gazillions of dollars to injure monkeys in various ways to prove that the people who think they are having a good time aren't. This is medieval science, intellectually bankrupt and breathtakingly stupid.
Why do we allow it? Because it's never the top priority. There is poverty and hunger and disease and pollution and the death of the oceans, and a malign administration in Washington wishing to ignore all those problems, and there are so many hours in the day. This convulsion of superstition could last centuries. Just say, "Oh, noooo . . ."
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This work of commentary is in violation of Section 12 of the Anti-Rant Act.
Draw a line from Malta to Lampedusa; call it [email protected].
It'll kill you -- wait, no it won't
Jon Carroll Monday, September 15, 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let us consider the case of Dr. George Ricaurte, still a "member in good standing" of the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine despite recent events.
Ricaurte has long been a fighter in the War Against Some Drugs. Much the way some universities are able to find positive things to say about a drug in studies funded by the manufacturer of that drug, so is Ricaurte able to say negative things about recreational drugs in studies funded by the WOSD. Science is a lot easier when you know your conclusions ahead of time.
Last year, Ricaurte issued a study saying that the amount of ecstasy commonly taken by a user in one night could lead to permanent brain damage and symptoms resembling those of Parkinson's disease.
The study was met with some skepticism even when it was released. According to Donald J. McNeil, writing in the New York Times, "the study was ridiculed at the time by other scientists working on the drug, who said the primates (used in the study) must have been injected with massive overdoses. Two of the 10 primates died of heatstroke, they pointed out, and another two were in such distress that they were not given all the doses. If a typical ecstasy dose killed 20 percent of those who used it, critics said, no one would use it recreationally."
Yeah, word would get around. Thirty or so dead bodies at a rave -- people would talk.
It was noted that Ricaurte's study was published just in time for him to testify to Congress in favor of a proposed law called the Anti-Rave Act. (Thank God there's no Anti-Rant Act, or I'd be out of a job.)
Well, now it turns out that the drug Ricaurte gave to his baboons was not ecstasy but a powerful amphetamine called d-methamphetamine. The admission of error was published in the journal Science.
Ricaurte called the mistake "a simple human error."
"We're scientists, not politicians," he said, and later: "We're not chemists. We get hundreds of chemicals here. It is not customary to check them. "
OK, slow down. Read that again. We get hundreds of chemicals in here, in this scientific laboratory where we analyze the effect of chemicals on primate subjects, and we do not bother to check the chemicals. Nope, we just read the labels, get out the syringes, and hello monkey want some whatever-this-is?
Doesn't that give you faith in science? I mean, I knew a guy in London like that once, he'd pretty much inject anything into his body, but he died a long time ago. Maybe there's a lesson there.
The whole thing is so loony. The government takes its usual moralistic approach to drug research, funding projects to prove that bad drugs are bad, and it prevents the funding of studies that do not start with any conclusions.
It may be that drugs like ecstasy and marijuana have some medical uses. There is already some evidence that this is true, but there's been no follow- up because the government will not allow it. The government is afraid of the answers, so it refuses to ask the questions.
Meantime, lapdogs like this Ricaurte dude get gazillions of dollars to injure monkeys in various ways to prove that the people who think they are having a good time aren't. This is medieval science, intellectually bankrupt and breathtakingly stupid.
Why do we allow it? Because it's never the top priority. There is poverty and hunger and disease and pollution and the death of the oceans, and a malign administration in Washington wishing to ignore all those problems, and there are so many hours in the day. This convulsion of superstition could last centuries. Just say, "Oh, noooo . . ."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This work of commentary is in violation of Section 12 of the Anti-Rant Act.
Draw a line from Malta to Lampedusa; call it [email protected].
