'Shroom Science: Safe & Effective? Smart?

In my column in this month's issue of The Scientist I argue that perhaps we are moving just a bit too fast in bringing back research on hallucinogens, and that learning the lessons of history about how that research led to pseudoscience and then to broader and dangerous abuse is very, very important - particularly given the effects should a media explosion lead to the impression that large and important medical institutions are engaged in drug pushing of psilocybin and other compounds (like LSD):

In the August issue of Psychopharmacology, Johns Hopkins researchers published a study in which some subjects were given psilocybin and then asked to relate their experiences. Francisco Moreno of the University of Arizona published in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry his patients' reports that psilocybin helped them with migraine headaches. Harbor-UCLA Medical Center psychiatrist Charles Grob told the Chronicle of Higher Education that he is giving the compound to patients dying of cancer to see whether it eases pain by relieving anxiety.

The study of so-called magic mushrooms isn't new; it could be argued that it is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It began, as best anyone can tell, when Wall Street banker R. Gordon Wasson documented his trip to a healer in Oaxaca, Mexico, whose brew, he claimed, enabled him to see the reality of ideas and concepts. His 1957 essay in Life magazine excited the imaginations of scientists around the world. Sandoz patented the two active chemicals in the mushrooms, calling the compounds psilocin and psilocybin. Chaos ensued as researchers struggled to do excellent scientific work using a family of substances whose effects - to put it mildly - were not easily measurable using the tools of the time.

The scientists who used psilocybin in their research in the 1960s poked at the nature of consciousness, but this particular compound just refused to be caged by ordinary scientific conventions. Paper after paper stabbed at descriptions of the effects and utility of psilocybin, but scalar measures of transcendence just could not capture its effects, or side effects. A few of the leading scientists engaged in its study, most notoriously Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary, simply abandoned the strictures of scientific research as insufficient to grasp the power of psilocybin.

By the time the FDA banned hallucinogenic drugs in 1970, the majority of those experimenting with mushrooms were not in universities...

[Read the full article]

In Brief

I'm at a grant meeting this week in New York so comments will be limited to news analysis this week.

A few interesting things out today:

A followup inquiry in Britain on its military's tests on service members during the 20th century is revealing:

The hearing was told how at 10.17 a.m. on the morning of May 6, 1953, Porton Down scientists had applied the liquid nerve gas on to the arms of Maddison and five others in a sealed gas chamber. After 20 minutes, Maddison complained that he was feeling ill. Soon after he slumped over the table and was carried out of the chamber and taken to Porton’s hospital, where he died at 11.00 a.m. The inquest examined what steps Porton took to ensure the safety of the human “guinea pigs”, but was supposed to take into account the differing “ethical climate” of the early 1950s and the “paranoid pressure” generated by the Cold War.

Another chronicle of Hurlbut's tempest in a teapot solution to stem cell ethics debates, this time from Religion News Service.

Baroness Warnock, described in Times online as Britain's leading medical ethics expert, spoke in defense of the proposed 'mental capacity bill', which would simplify euthanasia in Britain (or so many say). Warnock: "I don't see what is so horrible about the motive of not wanting to be an increasing nuisance." Needless to say, lots of people didn't like her comments.

Who will lead the California stem cell program? San Francisco Chronicle reports that it might be a real estate tycoon, Robert Kline. Also in the pool: Michael Friedman, CEO of City of Hope, and former UC president Richard Atkinson, a cognitive scientist. Weren't any actors available?

You knew that Ob-Gyns are sued quite frequently. But in Maryland, 70% have been sued at some point in their practice, bringing average insurance premiums to $150,000 per year. Maryland is typical for the U.S..

A profile of Vanderbilt's Pediatric Advanced Comfort Team is interesting. Mark Bliton of Vanderbilt is quoted.

Boston Globe does a great job on the sports steroids issue.

New York HIV Experiments on Children (Updated)

It appears that vulnerable children in some of New York's poorest districts are being forced to take part in HIV drug trials. [thanks Jim Coyne] Paul Root Wolpe pointed out that the story has actually been around for a while. UPDATE: Glaxo Smith Kline responds. [thanks Andrew Rosenthal]

Interesting New Data on Ethical Safeguards in Psychiatric Research

In December's American Journal of Psychiatry, data are presented that indicate the key safeguards of ethical research – informed consent, alternative decision makers, institutional review boards, data safety monitoring boards, and confidentiality measures- are recognized by both research subjects and researchers as important measures used to protect subjects' rights and well-being. Does a positive recognition of these safeguards by the stakeholders say anything about the effectiveness of the safeguards themselves? -Dominic Sisti

WMA "Clarifies" Helsinki Declaration

The World Medical Association issued a press release today concerning paragraph 30 of the Declaration, which reads that "At the conclusion of the study every patient entered into the study should be assured of access to the best proven prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic methods identified by the study." In what might be the most significant shift in the history of the Declaration, the WMA amended it to read: "The WMA hereby reaffirms its position that it is necessary during the study planning process to identify post-trial access by study participants to prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures identified as beneficial in the study or access to other appropriate care."