Very interesting thread, freda.

I have mixed feelings about this. I agree that as is true with many medications, there can be a sinister side to how they may be used. But whether this means we can ever entirely dump something that could also save some from enormous trauma is not to my mind appropriate.

I'm a little unclear, since it seems that memories are not erased so much as they are made less invasive emotionally. For people who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, I can see a great benefit to this.

Also for those who have severe depression. I myself, after decades of therapy (and Amos, in many cases it's not about confronting one's memories, it's about the impact that they still have years after the event) I finally took a medical friend's advice and began anti-depressants. The feeling was one of immediate relief, not that I lost anything (I had been surpressing memories for years because they were simply too painful to dwell on) but I could more easily start to examine many incidents without feeling that terror of bringing up memories that would leave me emotionally trammeled.

So herein lays the dichotomy of many of these drugs. It's not how good they are, it's how they will be used or abused.

I'm concerned with the use of the word "ethics" here. It comes too close to what is going in with the debate about cloning and stem cell research. Let's face it, The Pandora's Box of Science and Medicine was opened long ago, and whether we like it or not, new discoveries are going to be implimented daily.

This research, along with others need to be followed by the public, as it's the only way we can try to make sure the scenarios of their uses remain positive...xx..e