RTI denies it made mistake that torpedoed results of a $1.3M (mdma) study

[DreamsAreFree]

This wasn't an accident, and RTI had nothing to do with it. Fuck Ricuarte and any of his "studies". [/QUOTE

I've been reading about this discredited Ricaurte bloke and his flawed and essentially government funded research for the last 10 years... I cannot believe this chemical mix up was a mistake, it strikes me that if it wasn't deliberate, then there's a DEA mole in Recaurte's team. Perhaps they spotted that this research might ultimately exonerate MDMA and so they sabotaged it... Do love a conspiracy theory.

I think CC and SI have the right picture here. RTI is definitely not to blame and it's surprising that Dr NitWit thought he could get away with trying to scapegoat them.

Like SI, I do love a good conspiracy theory!

DaF

 

[Psychadelic_Paisly]

what i think is odd is the 1.3 million dollar price tag on the research.

it only took a day, maybe two. Im sure the scientists, who arent even scientific enough to make sure what they are experimenting with is actually indeed what they need, get paid alot. Then im sure it costs alot to maintain their lab. Then the price of the chems, which was probably next to nothing. Lab eqiupment, needles, cages, etc...but what I believe was the most expensive aspect was the monkeys.

This study pretty much spent 1.3 million $$$ to discover that if you inject small primates with 300+ mg of methamphetamine IV, several times over the course of a few hours, they can die or have serious brain damage. Wow what a discovery that was worth spending 1.3 million taxpayer dollars. We paid them millions to kill monkeys.

The only really viable place i can think the money went would be cutting through all the red tape in order to obtain illegal drugs and get primates jacked up. There's quiet a few serious social and moral problems right there.

But then again....it probably only cost $1,300...we all know how the media loves to blow out prices figures

 

[Brian Oblivion]

Ricaurte doesn't pay much for his monkeys. Here's proof:
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=98865

 

[5-HT2]

The monkeys are at least 10 grand a piece, so that's already at least 100K just for them. Then, the fees for taking care of them are also very high. Basically everything involving any medical procedure requiring extensive veterinary knowledge costs a lot of money because it involves monkey vets. Price tags for scientific studies also include costs associated with the lab techs, grad students and postdocs in the lab. Also, a lot of the equipment, buffers, chemicals, and enzymes required for research are really expensive because they are often sold at jacked-up prices. Still, $1.3 million is a SHITLOAD of money. A lab could buy 4 confocal microscopes, 2 two-photon microscopes, or a dozen electrophysiology rigs with that much loot!

Ricaurte was stupid to think he could pass the buck to RTI. It would be VERY hard for them to switch the labels, because I am sure the drugs were made at different times. It would also be very stupid, because they could lose certification to make them. I'm sure this story will keep percolating as more facts are revealed. After all, just the fact that they couldn't tell something was up with these monkeys by the way they were behaving is a little suspicious. Both of the other drug-doing people in my lab laughed over the retraction and asked, "didn't they notice the monkeys were spazzing out too much and high for way too long?" Neither did they measure levels of MDMA or its metabolites in any part of the body either during or after the experiment. They could also have looked, as someone else mentioned, at serotonin and dopamine levels in brain. The fact that they did none of these things is at best a sign of corner-cutting.

 

[Brian Oblivion]

^^^
I 100% agree with your lab and maintenance cost assessment. And chances are very high that most of the equipment that they used was already available to the lab, anyway.

It's also strange that they didn't take blood samples and run them through GC or GC/MS to determine blood concentration level of MDMA during timed intervals of the experiment. I would expect this would have been recorded at different stages of the testing.

I'd be interested to see a breakdown of their operating budget to find out where exactly all of the funding went. Perhaps this is even more insidious that we all imagine.

 

[Si Dread]

1.3 million taxpayer dollars. We paid them millions to kill monkeys.

When millions of people all over the world are taking this drug regularly, there's really no excuse for this barbarity. If you want to prove that overdoses of MDMA/Amphetamines/whatever are hazardous to humans, poison some f**king lifers with it or something...:D 8(

 

[C@NDYMAN]

I absolutly don't believe this was an accident!

how can u make such a mistake???!.......

 

[PASSSDABLUNT]

How come we're not hearing about a study on meth being recalled?
Either the meth was used purposely after the MDMA didn't give the desired result, or the "meth" experiment wasn't published because they didn't get the results they wanted.

 

[NSU]

Funded by NIDA, botched by Ricaurte who's blaming RTI for the fuck up...And those are the people who tell us what is good or bad for us....This is akin to a soap opera...