Ecstasy doesn’t cause Parkinson’s–but Speed probably does
A year ago researchers from John Hopkin’s University School of Medicine in Baltimore published a study that suggested that taking MDMA, or ecstasy, even once could cause enough brain damage to lead to Parkinson’s disease later in life. The scientists gave three doses of the drug at three-hour intervals to squirrel monkeys and baboons, to mimic the activities of people using the drug while partying all night. Two of the 10 primates died within hours, and the rest suffered extreme damage to those nerves in the brain that are lost with Parkinson’s, prompting the scientists to announce that one night of ecstasy use could cause the disease. This week those same researchers issued a retraction, stating that the bottles used were mislabeled. Before pill-heads everywhere start heaving a sigh of relief, the scientists stated that the monkeys were given amphetamines-a chemical group that includes methamphetamine, or speed. Moreover, a bottle labeled as containing speed, which was produced by the same lab, was later found to contain ecstasy, suggesting that the two were switched accidentally. Ecstasy is nevertheless known to have seriously harmful effects on the brain’s serotonin circuits.
Source: Science
-Zoe Cormier
