OT: Scientists back brain drugs for healthy people.

[Guest guest]

What will the next frontier be when there's no healthy people left--

dead people?

Scientists back brain drugs for healthy people

NEW YORK – Healthy people should have the right to boost their brains

with pills, like those prescribed for hyperactive kids or memory-

impaired older folks, several scientists contend in a provocative

commentary.

College students are already illegally taking prescription stimulants

like Ritalin to help them study, and demand for such drugs is likely

to grow elsewhere, they say.

" We should welcome new methods of improving our brain function, " and

doing it with pills is no more morally objectionable than eating

right or getting a good night's sleep, these experts wrote in an

opinion piece published online Sunday by the journal Nature.

The commentary calls for more research and a variety of steps for

managing the risks.

As more effective brain-boosting pills are developed, demand for them

is likely to grow among middle-aged people who want youthful memory

powers and multitasking workers who need to keep track of multiple

demands, said one commentary author, brain scientist Martha Farah of

the University of Pennsylvania.

" Almost everybody is going to want to use it, " Farah said.

" I would be the first in line if safe and effective drugs were

developed that trumped caffeine, " another author, Gazzaniga

of the University of California, Santa Barbara, declared in an e-mail.

The seven authors, from the United States and Britain, include ethics

experts and the editor-in-chief of Nature as well as scientists. They

developed their case at a seminar funded by Nature and Rockefeller

University in New York. Two authors said they consult for

pharmaceutical companies; Farah said she had no such financial ties.

Some health experts agreed that the issue deserves attention. But the

commentary didn't impress Leigh of the University of Minnesota

Center for Bioethics.

" It's a nice puff piece for selling medications for people who don't

have an illness of any kind, " said.

The commentary cites a 2001 survey of about 11,000 American college

students that found 4 percent had used prescription stimulants

illegally in the prior year. But at some colleges, the figure was as

high as 25 percent.

" It's a felony, but it's being done, " Farah said.

The stimulants Adderall and Ritalin are prescribed mainly for people

with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but they can help

other people focus their attention and handle information in their

heads, the commentary says.

Another drug called Provigil is approved for sleep disorders but is

also prescribed for healthy people who need to stay alert when sleep-

deprived, the commentary says. Lab studies show it can also perk up

the brains of well-rested people. And some drugs developed for

Alzheimer's disease also provide a modest memory boost, it says.

Ritalin is made by Switzerland-based Novartis AG, but the drug is

also available generically. Adderall is made by U.K.-based Shire PLC

and Montvale, N.J.-based Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., and some

formulations are also available generically. Provigil is made by

Cephalon Inc. of Frazer, Pa.

While supporting the concept that healthy adults should be able to

use brain-boosting drugs, the authors called for:

• More research into the use, benefits and risks of such drugs. Much

is unknown about the current medications, such as the risk of

dependency when used for this purpose, the commentary said. Also,

according to the Food and Drug Administration, Adderall, for example,

is an amphetamine that carries warnings about possible sudden death,

heart attack and stroke, especially for people with heart problems.

• Policies to guard against people being coerced into taking them.

• Steps to keep the benefits from making socio-economic inequalities

worse.

• Action by doctors, educators and others to develop policies on the

use of such drugs by healthy people.

• Legislative action to allow drug companies to market the drugs to

healthy people if they meet regulatory standards for safety and

effectiveness.

Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse,

said she agreed with the commentary that the nonprescribed use of

brain-boosting drugs must be studied.

But she said she was concerned that wider use of stimulants could

lead more people to become addicted to them. That's what happened

decades ago when they were widely prescribed for a variety of

disorders, she said.

" Whether we like it or not, that property of stimulants is not going

to go away, " she said.

Parens, a senior research scholar at the Hastings Center, a

bioethics think tank in Garrison, N.Y., said the commentary makes a

convincing case that " we ought to be opening this up for public

scrutiny and public conversation. "

One challenge will be finding ways to protect people against subtle

coercion to use the drugs, the kind of thing parents feel when

neighbor kids sign up for SAT prep courses, he said.

And if the nation moves to providing a basic package of health care

to all its citizens, it's hard to see how it could afford to include

brain-boosting drugs, he said. If they have to be bought separately,

it raises the question about promoting societal inequalities, he

said.