(no subject)

So Dot & Alan were telling me on Sunday about some research that shows that Ecstasy causes Parkinson's Disease, among other nasty brain problems. The cover story of The Chronicle of Higher Education this week is actually about that research: seems the scientist who's done a good deal of government-funded MDMA research completely screwed up his experiments- he "accidentally" gave monkeys in the study huge doses of methamphetamines instead of MDMA, which did indeed cause severe neurological problems, including Parkinson's symptoms. He also attempted to cover this up, and it's just now coming to light. Seems that the government's "war on drugs" information regarding Ecstasy stems mostly from this guy's research, and many science-y type folk are coming out now to say they think a lot of his work is bogus; they say that since he was so heavily funded by the government he skewed a lot of his work to come out the way The Man wants it.

I love it when my liberal fantasies about government conspiracies are at least quasi-confirmed.