paper: "Fatalities after taking ibogaine in addiction treatment.."

hi,

i have known this paper - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16698188 - for a while now and would like to make you aware of it, in case you did not know it.

i like the discussion in the paper as a whole and their hypothesis makes sense to me. note that i do not have a broad overview on the scientific literature - this is just my opinion after reading this and a view other papers on iboga related deaths. this paper is, to my taste, the "best" one of the view i read.

anyways, the particular point i would like to point you to is the first line in the section "Autonomic dysfunction as a risk for sudden unexplained death":

"To date, medical monitoring of patients treated with ibogaine showed, as far as we are informed, no benefit. People died unexpectedly after the monitoring phase, and we have no information about any case of successful life-saving measures."

i am posting this here as from all i read in the forums this is not how it is commonly seen/viewed here. we seem to broadly agree that a) a medical checkup will minimize the risk b) (with medical monitoring) an experienced provider will be able to recognize a genuine emergency and act accordingly.

please note though what the point is they make! from my forum experience i conclude that this is not fully/openly acknowledged by our community - would you agree?

their hypothesis on why people die is also in line with what we broadly seem to believe (i think) - the paragraph continues:

"We suggest therefore, that ibogaine-related fatalities should be classified as sudden and unexplained death syndrome (SUDS). The term, SUDS, means that no specific medical reason can be identified, a psychological cause is often suspected [9] G.B. Schmid, Tod durch Vorstellungskraft. Das Geheimnis psychogener Todesfälle, Springer-Verlag, Wien (2000).[9]. This corresponds to the African theory that attributes deaths during initiation rituals to spiritual causes."

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💬 2 comments

2 Comments

wolfmoon· 31 Jul 2026

Well, I kinda thought that for a long time, but most people would dismiss that as crazy. I felt iboga was gentle and comforting, and I had no clue it could even be deadly when I first took it. It seemed as safe to me as LSD, mushrooms, DMT, or mescaline. It would seem most deaths in which ibogaine was even involved, were from extenuating circumstances, except for a few that were just unexplained. I don't see why it couldn't be spiritual or psychological. Never the less, there is no reason not to prepare for possible emergencies, if only for peace of mind..

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sunnyhawk· 02 Aug 2026

Good info mo. True GD, I've always wondered about some of the fatalities, there doesn't seem to be a consistent underlying cause behind most of them, so it continues to be a mystery in a sense.

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