Work Text:
Authors: Gonzalez, J.[1], Moreau, G.[2], and Sophie Green.
Experimental subjects aren’t credited as authors.
If I hadn’t bullied Jane into it you’d still be doing animal testing, so you wouldn’t have a paper without me. I think the least you can do is make me a co-author. Do you think I could talk anyone into giving me an honorary degree? Every time I introduce myself—not that I have to introduce myself that often these days, and I usually don’t want to if I’m lucky enough not to be recognized—I keep tripping over the empty space in front of my name. I was always something Sophie Green, you know? If I can’t be a captain, Dr. Sophie Green sounds pretty good. Or is that a title you can get through marriage, like royalty?
That was a joke.
I mean
Wait, who set up track changes so I can’t delete any of this?
Ignore that.
I set this document up assuming that even if someone can’t think before they speak, they might think before typing something out.
I’m dictating most of this. I dropped out of college so I wouldn’t have to write any more papers, thanks.
You don’t have to write this one either.
And not let you benefit from my insights? You don’t know who you’re dealing with, clearly.
Purpose
After the recreation of the Pasithea compound by one of this paper’s co-authors I don’t think there’s anyone in the PSA or on the peninsula who isn’t aware of that, the necessity of a cure became self-evident. This paper describes the first successful human trial reversing the effects of Pasithea therapy.
Methods
The Pasithea cure was synthesized* using an Egoran-derived substance: Compound Q (referred to by Dr. Gonzalez in audio notes as Egoran feelings juice) (George named the Egoran subject Jolene! If we’re bringing up details that are irrelevant!) (How relevant are your shady Cassandran contacts robbing a university museum?) (I’m going to try to gloss over how we obtained the sample, if you don’t mind. I’m sure it’ll come out later, but I’d rather not revel in the scandal.) (This scandal.) (Well observed, Sophie. This scandal.)
Due to an externally imposed timetable (Are you talking about Director Moon threatening to break my kneecaps or Josephene Crux riding in like the goddamn cavalry to bail us out of the infirmary?) (I appreciated the goddamn cavalry), researchers moved from compounding the treatment directly to human trials. The patient was informed of the risks but gave informed consent.
Only one researcher was present when the treatment was administered. Because Sophie punched me in the face. Because I punched them in the face. After injecting the treatment, the researcher led the patient through a visualization exercise to restore the excised memory.
*George, this doesn’t need to go in the abstract, but for the methods section we still need to recreate our chain of thought that led to creating the cure, if we can come up with a way to represent it that doesn’t look like a psychedelic poster a college freshman would hang on their dorm room wall.
I mean, that would make reading scientific papers more interesting to me.
Findings
The patient presented with cramps and nausea post-injection but reported recovering 70% of their missing memories within a day of treatment. (Worth investigating: Was the nausea a response to the cure or an emotional reaction to the memory? Most memories removed with Pasithea are negative. I don’t know if we could find a test subject trying to retrieve a memory they’d have a positive emotional response to. Worth putting a call out on the university listserv?) (I can’t think of any cases during my time administering Pasithea that would qualify, but I’ll draft a message after this.) They reported additional recall in “bursts” over the next few months, although the pacing of this may have been influenced by unusual and un-replicable conditions. What, you’re not going to put all your patients in a medically induced coma and launch them across the galaxy? Is that kind of laziness what’s behind the reproducibility crisis you keep telling me about?
Limitations
Pasithea reversal therapy relies on stimulating memory in the body. In this trial, the researcher administering the treatment was intimately familiar with the subject’s case. Among other things ;). Further trials are needed to see whether the treatment can be administered effectively by a physician other than the one who initially administered Pasithea.
Researchers were unable to keep the patient under long term observation after treatment because I was kidnapped by aliens. Followup observations at the one-year mark indicate no ill effects, but we have no data on the intervening period, which is a space for future research.
I’m not sure we can publish this.
Relax. You’re Jane Gonzalez. Your public expects you to be committing some level of medical malpractice.
And my Medean colleagues?
Since you’re committing that medical malpractice on Sophie Green, it’ll only make you more popular in the department breakroom.
Still on this shared document, by the way!!
Maybe you should make a pro/con list about it.
PLEASE grace us with one of your famous Jane Gonzalez pro/con lists.
I will lock this file if I have to.
Research Implications
The Pasithea cure was synthesized by a two-person team over the course of a few days in a non-sterile setting (my hotel room) (Kind of glad I didn’t know all the details when you gave me this stuff!) which means conditions for production are not demanding. The primary constraint is access to Compound Q. Beyond that, we are confident that this process can be repeated successfully by other researchers. Due to increased manufacturing of the Pasithea compound for use in therapy and interspecies communication (and the theft of our cure stockpile from the university) (how accepted is the ‘aliens stole my homework’ excuse for PhDs?), demand for a counteragent is high.
On behalf of those who are suffering now, and in defense of future generations, we share this work.
[1] Universidad Medeana, PhD in psychemical therapy
[2] Universidad Medeana, PhD in applied chemistry and xenobiology