
Pay No Attention to the Bloody Corpse in the Bathroom - kingsidharth
https://medium.com/p/ce3f3a495d12
======
wavefunction
Not to blow up my own spot but the bit about GHB being a powerful CNS
depressant is just as true about alcohol and it strikes me as a bit dramatic.

There are reasons why researchers are interested in pursuing it as a
potentially helpful tool for opium addicts, and focusing on the prurient
aspects of a substance is exactly what makes research into _controlled_
therapeutic use of GHB or Cannabis or psilocybin so hard to do in this
country.

~~~
nknighthb
> _the bit about GHB being a powerful CNS depressant is just as true about
> alcohol_

In the US, a "standard drink" is 14 grams of pure alcohol. It's the equivalent
of a typical can of beer.

3.5 grams of GHB can trigger unconsciousness, and 7 grams is potentially
lethal.

If this is "just as true", I think our definitions of truth are wildly
different.

EDIT: If you feel the need to reply to this comment, please read the entire
thread first and realize there's nothing "between the lines" of the comment. I
have no agenda here. I'm not making a policy argument. I'm not advocating for
or against GHB or any other substance. You don't need to tell me what the LD50
is for any particular substance (chances are I already know).

~~~
threedaymonk
Potency is a pretty misleading comparison. There are drugs that are prescribed
in μg (mcg) doses, and drugs that are prescribed in mg - mistaking μg for mg
has caused deaths.

The LD50 of caffeine for an average male is about 14 g. That's the same (in
terms of mass) as the alcohol in a beer. Does that make caffeine more or less
"powerful"? It takes something like a hundred cups of coffee to reach
caffeine's LD50; for alcohol, it's slightly over one bottle of strong spirits.
Despite caffeine's higher potency, it's a lot easier to kill yourself by
drinking too much whisky than too much coffee.

~~~
nknighthb
I cannot begin to understand what point you're trying to make. The person I
was replying to was explicitly comparing the potency of GHB to alcohol, both
depressants commonly encountered in a highly concentrated form.

Making this about caffeine or any other substance that can be lethal in small
amounts seems a non-sequitur.

~~~
mikeash
The point is that what we generally consider as "power" or "potency" is more
than just effect per unit mass. We don't generally consider capsaicin to be
more powerful than alcohol even though, purely on the basis of how much you
have to ingest, it's far easier to kill yourself with it.

~~~
nknighthb
> _what we generally consider as "power" or "potency" is more than just effect
> per unit mass_

Um, OK, that may be true for you, and maybe even for society at large, but
I've personally never heard such a thing before right now. It's certainly not
how I would define the words.

To address the point I think you're trying to make (which still doesn't make
much sense to me), in the forms they are commonly encountered in, GHB is
unquestionably much more dangerous/"powerful" than alcohol. So I still don't
see why my comment attracted this sort of argument.

~~~
wavefunction
Dangerous? Alcohol has much more systemic toxicity than GHB in general.
Consider if you consumed 3.5 grams of tylenol. You will die. Does that make it
more "powerful" or "dangerous" than alcohol?

That is the point we are trying to make.

~~~
shabble
Are you talking about 3.5g Tylenol (Acetaminophen/Paracetamol) in conjunction
with [moderate to large] amounts of alcohol? Because otherwise, it's unlikely
to be fatal even in a single dose, and is within normal dosage guidelines for
daily use (typ. 4000mg/day)

It takes somewhere around 10g in a single dose, or 6g+ repeated over several
days to cause serious damage[1], although obviously it varies by individual.

Note: This is not to downplay in any way the seriousness of APAP/Paracetamol
toxicity, it's [iirc] the 2nd most common drug of fatal overdose, and is a
truly horrible way to die[2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol_toxicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol_toxicity)

[2] Although prognosis is good if you get proper treatment in ~8hrs.

------
e40
The petition has a very small number of signers. Perhaps we can help out
there.

[https://www.change.org/petitions/governor-mark-dayton-of-
min...](https://www.change.org/petitions/governor-mark-dayton-of-minnesota-
investigate-psychiatric-research-misconduct-at-the-university-of-minnesota-2)

------
fnordfnordfnord
Some background, which may have even appeared on HN before. Markington, the
suicide victim, was coerced to join the study through a dubious sounding
scheme.

 _" Dan was acutely psychotic, plagued by delusions about demons, and he had
repeatedly been judged incapable of making his own medical decisions. Even
worse, he had been placed under an involuntary commitment order that legally
compelled him to obey the recommendations of the psychiatrist who recruited
him into the study."_

[http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2013/03/why-
univers...](http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2013/03/why-university-
minnesota-psychiatric-research-scandal-must-be-investigated)

------
brightghost
I can't claim to be well-versed on this story, but I would like to point out
that a couple weeks ago the author of this piece was accused of
misrepresenting the issue in the local paper, The Star Tribune. In particular
he was called out for glossing over the fact that there have already been
several investigations of the matter, which I see he has again failed to
mention in the piece linked here.

[http://www.startribune.com/local/yourvoices/207993521.html](http://www.startribune.com/local/yourvoices/207993521.html)

~~~
SilasX
Actually he mentions it:

>>University officials have repeatedly claimed to have been investigated and
exonerated by various legal and regulatory bodies, but those claims have
fallen apart.

And has these links:

[http://www.healthnewsreview.org/2013/05/questions-
journalist...](http://www.healthnewsreview.org/2013/05/questions-journalists-
should-ask-about-a-psych-drug-trial-suicide/)

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/147683397/Attorney-General-
Office-...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/147683397/Attorney-General-Office-
Letter-Refuting-Claim-That-It-Investigated-Markingson-Death)

------
api
When institutions behave like this they're not just tarnishing their own
image. They're destroying civilization.

Got into a debate around here a while back trying to explain why otherwise-
rational people are afraid of GMO foods. This is an example of my point.
Things like this erode trust not just in the particular institution in
question but of _all_ institutions in our society. At some point many people
actually start to assume the worst and flip over into seeing official
pronouncements as contrarian indicators: "oh, the paid shills say it's safe
and it's produced by a big agribusiness corporation so it _must_ be bad for
you..."

Even worse still, we have junk like this:

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=moon-
landi...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=moon-landing-
faked-why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories)

I've seen a rash of these articles lately, deconstructing in elaborate detail
why people distrust science and officialdom and believe in increasingly
outlandish "conspiracy theories." They're all elaborate dances to avoid the
obvious issue: trust.

It's almost a kind of blame-the-victim mentality: yes you have been lied to,
but you should ignore that. If the fact that you've been treated
contemptuously causes you to begin harboring suspicions, it's because you are
irrational and stupid. Now shut up and believe what you're told.

No, it's not the victim's fault. It is the authorities' fault. Trust is
_earned_ through consistent transparency and honorable behavior. When the
institutions of society behave dishonorably and unethically, trust is
systematically weakened across the entire society.

Once a person learns that their authorities may well be shills, liars, quacks,
fools, or worse, then it becomes increasingly easy to harbor increasingly-
damning suspicions about what _else_ "they" might be lying about. Hence 9/11
was an inside job, moon hoax, and other conspiracy theories.

Keep in mind that sometimes such suspicions are correct. The executive branch
lied the US into war in Iraq, to give one example. With examples of that
magnitude, I personally question whether belief in outlandish conspiracy
theories is even particularly irrational.

And it's very, very dangerous. Trust is one of the key differences between the
first world and the third world. Part of why places like sub-Saharan Africa
can never develop is that nobody trusts anyone and nobody dares do anything.
They "know" (and sometimes with good reason) that anything they do will simply
be stolen by their kleptocracies, and that anything their authorities say is
probably a lie. (Hence the prevalence of things like HIV/AIDS denialism in
those cultures... another symptom of decayed trust.)

If our leaders, authorities, and institutions continue to treat the public
with dismissive contempt, the third world is where we are headed. The
prevalence of conspiracy theories and alt-health fearmongering is a leading
indicator of an overall breakdown in the implicit trust relationships and
social contract that underlies advanced Western societies.

~~~
pnathan
Looking over things like MKULTRA and the list of problematic experiments that
have been committed in the name of science, it is easy to grasp why conspiracy
theories form.

~~~
api
Yeah, at least we have IRBs today. The mid-20th century was an ugly time for
that kind of thing: MKUltra, syphillis experiments, "here guys, look at the
atomic blast, it's pretty!", and so on...

------
fixxer
What really gets me about this, beyond the tragedy itself, is the amount of
bullshit I have had to go through to get IRB approval for completely
insignificant projects (monitoring decibel levels in public spaces, for
example, which is NOT even subject to IRB exemption but I still was forced by
the funding source to pursue). Ugh.

------
lucidrains
Recently one of the pediatric residents at my hospital was found watching
child pornography in the call room. After being reported, the institution did
nothing about it, and tried to sweep it under the rug. It bothers me that a
prestigious academic institution would rather save face than to deal with a
serious issue at hand.

~~~
kevinnk
Assuming we're talking about the "other" UofM, I would hardly call what
happened "doing nothing about it." It was almost certainly an egregious
failure on the part of a couple individuals, but it was more about a lapse in
protocol then a university cover up. Not to mention that UofM has completed
two separate independent reviews of what happened and made a pretty big (and
public) effort to fix it.

~~~
lucidrains
The version I heard among my colleagues was that only after the police was
brought in did the university sped up it's investigations.

------
brown9-2
One of the most baffling parts of this story might be the reference to the
university's statutory immunity. Is that really a thing?

~~~
mcguire
The University of Minnesota, if it's like the other "public" universities in
the U.S. that I'm familiar with, is officially, more-or-less, when-it-wants-
to-be-ish, a branch of the government of the state of Minnesota. "Sovereign
immunity" extends to the university.

------
coinbase-craig
My question is why is it up to the facility to investigate? Shouldn't there be
a police investigation? Why's that not happening?

------
coldcode
No matter how much amazing technology we develop the amazing ability of people
to rationalize evil remains unimproved.

~~~
krapp
Did you mean _unimpeded_?

------
chewxy
This ethical question is particularly interesting. Just to play Devil's
Advocate, let's assume that Big Pharma is not involved. Rather, the people who
are doing the research are honest researchers who gain utility through the act
of research and finding breakthroughs.

If phrased this way, the incidents may suddenly now be sympathized as being
yet another statistic - after all, sacrifices must be made in the name of
scientific progress. The matter of coercion becomes trivial in the sense of
The Greater Good (of course, not all research will yield positive results, and
that's the whole point of research).

Now, if one were to have this sort of view going into doing medical trials,
who's to say that one's wrong? Why is it still evil, if the net result are
better drugs to control one's moods?

~~~
neekb
I think the article called to mind some other issues that were more important
than the debate about how ethical studies like this are or are not.

This guy's mother was giving the researchers feedback that the participant
could not. Namely, that he was getting WORSE. She tried to have him removed
from the program, and apparently couldn't. That goes well beyond "yet another
statistic", especially as he was deemed incapable of making his own medical
decisions.

------
lazugod
Is Medium.com teaching classes on informationless, sensationalized headlines
or something?

------
edlebert
Sounds like a job for Dexter.

