Cell Damage from LSD
Half a dozen of the most potent drugs used byphysicians have been known for years to cause changes in thechromosomes in some of the body's cells, with the parallel risk thatthey might also cause genetic defects if the patient later became aparent. Up to now, such drugs have been used only in the treatment ofadvanced cancer, so the danger to children has been minimal. But lastweek, in the journal Science, a team of researchers at the State Uni-versity of New York in Buffalo reported that LSD , the favorite magic carpet of psychedelic trippers mayproduce the same sort of chromosomal damage.
Geneticist Maimon J. Cohen and his colleagues were making a highlypreliminary report. They had found this phenomenon in the blood of onlythree people. From two healthy subjects they drew blood, then grew thewhite cells in the test tube. When LSD, in varying concentrations, wasadded for durations of four to 48 hours, the number of broken orotherwise damaged chromosomes was increased as much as tenfold over thesmall number usually found in healthy cells.
Then the investigators took blood from a 51-year-old schizophrenic, whohad been given LSD under careful medical supervision 15 times in sixyears. In his cells, the number of broken chromosomes was more thanthree times normal.
"The significance of these findings cannot yet be assessed fully," saysthe Buffalo group. There is no certainty that damage to chromosomes inblood cells is accompanied by similar damage in germ cells—sperm orova. But the two kinds of damage have been shown to go together afterexcessive radiation, and the same may be true after repeated use ofLSD. Blood specimens from patients who have "flipped" and becomepsychotic after LSD are now being sent to Buffalo to see whether thephenomenon is widespread.
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