The recent exposure of botched research methods in studies claiming to show that a dose of ecstasy causes brain damage has spurred a request for an independent inquiry into the politics surrounding the studies.
Dr. George Ricaurte of Johns Hopkins University and colleagues retracted the studies when it was discovered that a labeling error led to methamphetamine - not ecstasy - being injected into lab animals. The research received sensational media attention worldwide and influenced congressional decisions on anti-rave legislation related to ecstasy.
Colin Blakemore, professor of physiology at Oxford University and chairman of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, soon to become chief executive of the UK Medical Research Council, has explicitly denounced Ricaurte’s work. He and others expressed concerns about the ecstasy studies before their results were even published. Blakemore now wants some questions answered. Not only does he challenge the review processes of the journals that published Ricaurte's studies, he questions the mechanisms used to generate media releases and the possibility of politics influencing the editorial process.
The media found the press releases sensational and reported the claim that a night's clubbing can give you Parkinson's disease. Members of Congress also used the research to prove ecstasy's apparent dangers as they sought to enact the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act. Commonly known as the RAVE Act, the law responded to ecstasy hysteria by allowing the punishment of club owners for drug use on their property.
This is not the first time that government-cited ecstasy research has been plagued by controversy. Another of Ricaurte's studies that became the focus for the National Institute on Drug Abuse's 'This Is Your Brain On Ecstasy' campaign has never been replicated and is now considered to be methodologically flawed. The research claimed to show massive serotonin reductions in the brains of ecstasy users, spurring the federal government to enact anti-ecstasy legislation and promote a $54 million educational campaign to alert young people and their parents to ecstasy's dangers. A recently published, much larger and better controlled study, however, shows that former ecstasy users had the same serotonin levels as non-users.
This use of faulty research to shape bad drug policy is just one example of the way in which science is manipulated to promote policy. Although the studies have been retracted and the National Institute on Drug Abuse has pulled some of its information on ecstasy from its web site, this distortion and exaggeration of risk is likely to have damaged the credibility of the government and drug researchers. Loss of trust is particularly a concern when it comes to young people. Their experience with drug education and harm reduction outreach plays a big part in their drug taking behavior. Scientific evidence is of crucial importance in our approach to the problem of drug use. If young Americans are ever to believe what our government tells them about drugs and other policy issues, we must be sure that our messages are based on sound science rather than political ideology. Then, and only then, will young people have the kind of information they need to make sound health decisions.
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Ricaurte, G.A., et al., "Retraction," Science, 301:1479, September 12, 2003.
Ricaurte, G.A., et al. 2002. Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA ("ecstasy"). Science. 297:2260-2263.
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