A Different Use for Scientific Literature

Purdue University chemist David Nichols says he never intended for the compounds he invented to become harmful street drugs, reports the Associated Press's Seth Borenstein. Chemicals Nichols made as possible treatments to Parkinson's disease or depression, and which were roughly similar to ecstasy and LSD, have been exploited by black market labs as recreational drugs instead, Borenstein says. Nichols, who recently wrote an editorial in Nature, says he never intended his work to become dangerous, and didn't know that papers he had published would be mined by marginally legal labs looking for easier ways to make drugs. Bioethicist Art Caplan tells Borenstein that Nichols' editorial "should lead to more careful thinking about the unintended consequences of scientific advances."