The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent at least $7.8 million in a secretive experiment to determine whether drug addicts become hyperactive when they suddenly lose access to morphine, documents obtained by The Examiner show.
The VA recruited 69 heroin addicts and began giving them regular doses of morphine. The scientists then cut off the morphine doses at intervals to see what would happen, internal reports show.
The decade-old study, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, offers the fullest picture yet of widespread government trials that gave hard-core drugs to addicts.
Patients in the 1994-95 study suffered 787 “adverse events” from constipation to heart tremors, researchers reported. Thirty-eight of the events were “severe, study drug related,” internal reports show.
It’s not clear what happened to the laboratory subjects after the experiments: The VA’s reports do not list follow-up information.
The studies were sanctioned by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a Bethesda-based agency under the supervision of the National Institutes of Health.
Officials in both NIDA and the VA agreed to keep under wraps information on the chemicals used in, and the safety of, the studies. They also agreed that the VA would alert NIDA authorities if anyone tried to obtain the information through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Many scientists concede that such studies flirt with ethical gray areas but say that they are vital in the battle against drug addiction.
“It’s very, very good for us to think about these matters,” said Dr. Petros Levounis, director of the Addiction Institute of New York. “But really, the truth of the matter is that these patients, in general, would continue to use these drugs. By bringing them into a hospital, we’re increasing the odds that they will engage in treatment.”
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INSIDE THE STUDIES
Some of the Veterans Affairs studies that gave drugs to military veterans:
» “Modafinil-Cocaine Safety Study”: A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Drug Interaction Study”: Put seven addicts in a Philadelphia VA hospital to determine whether it was safe to use cocaine injections and modafinil, an anti-narcolepsy drug. Addicts were given up to 30 milligrams of cocaine per day.
» “Cocaine-Methylphenidate Interaction Study”: Put 10 cocaine addicts in a Cincinnati VA hospital for 19 days and gave them up to 40 milligrams of cocaine per day to determine whether using both cocaine and methylphenidate — a drug used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder — led to toxic interactions.
» “Metyrapone and Cocaine: A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Drug Interaction Study”: Tested 12 cocaine addicts in the Cincinnati VA, giving them up to 40 milligrams of cocaine per day to determine whether the adrenal-disorder drug metyrapone curbs cocaine cravings.
