Latest news with #MDMA-assisted
Scottish Sun
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
The controversial remedy Lorde used to ‘cure stage fright' before Glastonbury set – it can help anxiety and PTSD too
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) LORDE has opened up about the unconventional therapy that helped her overcome crippling stage fright. The Royals singer kicked off Glastonbury festival earlier today with a surprise pre-lunchtime set to a packed crowd on the Woodsies stage. 4 The New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde performs at Glastonbury Credit: AP 4 The 28-year-old recently admitted to using MDMA-assisted therapy to conquer her stage fright Credit: Getty 4 Thousands of fans flocked to the Woodsies stage after word spread about her secret set Credit: Getty Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert this week, the New Zealand pop star revealed she used MDMA - known by its street names ecstasy, molly and mandy – to conquer her fear of performing. Asked how she moved past it, the 28-year-old replied: 'Well, it's MDMA therapy. Truly, like, changed the game on my stage fright.' MDMA therapy, also called MDMA-assisted therapy, involves taking a controlled dose of the drug in a supervised medical setting, alongside sessions with a trained therapist. It's designed to help people process difficult emotions or trauma in a calm, open state - though it is still illegal in the UK. A growing body of research shows the controversial new approach to treating mental health issues could tackle everything from PTSD, and anxiety to depression. Scientists are even looking at whether it could fix marriage problems, beat booze addiction and ease long-term grief. In a world first, since July 1, 2023, some psychiatrists in Australia have been allowed to prescribe MDMA for PTSD under strict medical supervision. This is unlike in Lorde's New Zealand, where MDMA is still illegal for general use and is classed as a controlled drug, meaning having it without permission can lead to jail time. I watched in horror as my son, 16, was killed by super-strength ecstasy – my warning to parents ahead of Glastonbury The UK still classifies MDMA as a Class A drug, meaning it is illegal to possess, sell or prescribe, although campaigners are calling for change. The ban is largely due to concerns over its potential for abuse and side-effects. When used recreationally, it can lead to raised heart rate, anxiety, confusion and, in some cases, dangerous overheating, according to Talk to Frank. There's also the risk of impure street versions. But in a controlled medical setting, where the dose is pure and carefully monitored these risks are minimal. The drug works by flooding the brain with serotonin, which calms the amygdala - the part of the brain that processes fear and anxiety. This subdues the fight or flight response, allowing some people to explore past experiences in therapy sessions without becoming overwhelmed. This allows the brain to 'rewire' how it responds to stress. 4 MDMA-assisted therapy could help people with a range of psychological issues Credit: AP Trials have shown it can be especially effective for people who haven't responded to traditional treatments. The results were immediate Lorde detailed how the treatment helped where other approaches had failed. 'Some of these things live very deep in the body, and you hold on to it,' she said. 'You hold on to a response like stage fright for reasons that no amount of talk therapy or brain use could get at. "But when you bypass that and get to the body, something shifts. And that totally happened for me.' After trying 'everything' to manage her performance anxiety, Lorde said the results were immediate. 'I was like, oh, it's over. I know it's over.'
CBC
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Why the most powerful celeb book clubs love The Tell
A new memoir has made book club history. The top three book club owners — Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Jenna Bush Hager — came together to celebrate the launch of Amy Griffin's new memoir, The Tell. The book shares the businesswoman's path to healing after MDMA-assisted therapy unearthed a long-hidden childhood trauma. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud speaks with The Cut's Emily Gould about her thoughts on the memoir, as well as what it means to have it lauded by the giants of the book club world. Interview with Emilly Gould produced by Jane van Koeverden.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
DOD commits $9.8 million to study psychedelics for active-duty troops
Physicians at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center confirmed they will receive one of two $4.9 million grants from the Department of Defense to fund a study of MDMA, the active ingredient in the street drug known as ecstasy, according to emails shared with Military Times. The psychedelic drug will be given to active-duty Army personnel with mild to moderate post-traumatic stress disorder to study the psychological flexibility patients experience as a potential mechanism of MDMA's therapeutic effect. The second grant will fund a separate MDMA-assisted therapy study done in partnership between Emory University and STRONG STAR, a medical consortium and training network based in the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. While the U.S. government first conducted illegal experiments with psychedelics on soldiers half a century ago, this new study marks the first-ever trial of MDMA for the treatment of PTSD in active-duty soldiers. Maj. Aaron Wolfgang, a U.S. Army psychiatrist who specializes in treating PTSD, will be the lead author and physician of the double-blind placebo trial. Wolfgang is the first author in a systematic review and overview of MDMA and MDMA-assisted therapy featured in the January issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. The article, written by a cohort of leading psychedelic researchers, describes common misconceptions about MDMA due to its close association with classical psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin and mescaline. 'Unlike other psychedelics,' the paper says, 'MDMA uniquely induces prosocial subjective effects of heightened trust and self-compassion while maintaining ego functioning as well as cognitive and perceptual lucidity.' VA awards $1.5 million to study using psychedelics for PTSD treatment This apparent gain of function suggests what advocates for the legalization of MDMA have been saying for decades: the drug is uniquely positioned to be a breakthrough therapeutic for treating many psychological disorders. The new study would enroll active-duty service members, who would each receive three MDMA dosing sessions between three and five weeks apart over the course of 10 months. Participants would receive three preparatory sessions before the first dosing session and three integration sessions after each dosing session. 'Unlike other MDMA-Assisted Therapy/Psychedelic Assisted Therapy long-term studies, this will be one of the first that I'm aware of to incorporate long-term follow-up that remains double-blinded, which will provide us with higher confidence data,' Wolfgang said. The pharmaceutical company Lykos Therapeutics, formerly MAPS PBC, made a major push in December 2023 for MDMA to receive FDA approval. When approval was denied in August 2024, the result came as a shock to advocates for psychedelic-assisted therapy, many of whom were veterans and their family members. FDA rejects psychedelic MDMA as treatment for PTSD 'I think that PTSD should be treated while you're in service, not force you to decide to stay in or get out in order to receive the care you need,' said Jonathan Lubecky, an Iraq War veteran who served with the Marine Corps' Bravo Battery, 5th Battalion, 113th Field Artillery Regiment. Last June, Lubecky provided testimony at an FDA public hearing, where he credited MDMA-assisted therapy, which he underwent in 2014, with allowing him to 'truly live' for the last decade and weather many of life's traumatic experiences long after returning from his deployment. Wolfgang believes the military will have more success in elevating the legitimacy of MDMA-assisted therapy. The history of MDMA and the military runs deep. An animal toxicology study of MDMA was done by the US Army Chemical Corps in 1953 and 1954 as part of the secretive Edgewood Arsenal experiments. Vets used in secret tests make progress in court About 20 years later, American biochemist Alexander Shulgin taught retired Army Lt. Col. Leo Zeff, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, how to use MDMA to treat his therapy patients. Zeff was so taken by the drug that he came out of retirement to proselytize MDMA's therapeutic benefits and train more than 100 therapists. Shulgin, a Navy veteran who served on the Clemson-class destroyer Pope during World War II, went on to synthesize several unique psychedelics, including 2-CB, often described as a combination of MDMA and LSD. Wolfgang hopes a new generation of soldiers could benefit from the drug's consideration as a breakthrough therapy. 'I also envision this project — and the lasting program I hope to see it turn into — as a beacon of hope for countless service members and their families who are suffering and whose lives are being upended due to PTSD,' Wolfgang said. '[They] already sacrifice so much in service to our country. I'd like for them to know that we hear them and to know that we are working tirelessly to ensure we offer them the absolute cutting edge.'
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
This NYT Story Blasting Leftists Is Wildly Misleading and Dangerous. Why Did They Publish It?
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. On Feb. 4—the same day that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination for secretary of Health and Human Services advanced out of the Senate finance committee—the New York Times published a story with the headline 'How a Leftist Activist Group Helped Torpedo a Psychedelic Therapy.' The story claims that Psymposia, a psychedelic-science and harm-reduction nonprofit consisting of five unpaid volunteers, used baseless and misleading accusations to thwart Food and Drug Administration approval of MDMA-assisted therapy, or MDMA-AT. Without the efforts of this 'small band of anticapitalist activists,' the authors argue, Lykos Therapeutics' '$250 million investment' in MDMA-AT may have paid off by being the first psychedelic therapy to get federal approval—potentially establishing the company as a multibillion-dollar enterprise. As a journalist who has followed the psychedelics movement for years and attended hearings during the FDA approval process to write about them for Slate, the story was stunning. It was largely divorced from the events as I witnessed them, misleading in crucial ways, and journalistically bewildering. But what the story lacks in fully recounting why Lykos' application tanked, it makes up for in fostering outrage, scapegoating a fringe group, and establishing a useful narrative should the new HHS secretary want to reverse the FDA's decision. The core argument about Psymposia outlined in the New York Times article—that individuals from the organization deliberately raised baseless, inflammatory allegations in a vendetta against Lykos and veterans—isn't new. It's an allegation initially posited by the Heroic Hearts Project, an organization that advocates for veterans' access to psychedelic therapy. RFK Jr. retweeted that statement, and proponents of Lykos' therapy later echoed the narrative in a video posted on the social media accounts of Lykos' parent company, MAPS—the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. To understand how we got here, though, it's worth stepping back. The first domino fell in March 2024 when the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review—an independent group that evaluates the value of new medical treatments—published a draft review of the Lykos trials. The authors of the report said they had 'substantial concerns about the validity of the results,' noting poor experimental design choices and potential misconduct. The FDA's Psychopharmacologic Advisory Committee—which reviews drug applications for safety and efficacy, voting on whether they should recommend approval to the FDA—met on June 4 and lamented that Lykos failed to collect important patient safety information, like liver and heart function; declined to record elevated mood and euphoria as they'd explicitly been instructed to do; and neglected to use a placebo per department recommendation. The list goes on and has expanded considerably with further reporting in the wake of the FDA's decision. The NYT story glosses over these data collection missteps, failing to mention mishaps like Lykos' failure to take study participants' lab work or EKG data. The article and advocates for Lykos are quick to note that the FDA approved the study design. But Michael Ostacher, a professor of psychiatry behavioral sciences at Stanford University who has worked on esketamine studies, told me that's misleading. 'Just because the FDA accepts a trial design doesn't mean they approve the application if the trial gets positive results,' he said. 'Plus, Lykos ignored things the FDA had asked them to do.' The NYT story also begins with a strange and misleading characterization of Psymposia's role at the public comment period of the advisory committee meeting, claiming that seven members connected to Psymposia 'presented themselves as experts in the field of psychedelics, but none had expertise in medicine or therapy.' It goes on to assert that none of these speakers disclosed their connection to Psymposia, 'a leftist advocacy group' with a vendetta against MAPS. Only three of Psymposia's five members spoke during the public comment period, and none presented themselves as having expertise in medicine or therapy or suggested that expertise in psychedelics translated to expertise in medicine or therapy. First to speak was Neşe Devenot, who the story refers to as a 'self-described expert in psychedelic bioethics who uses gender neutral pronouns.' Indeed, Devenot introduced themself as an expert in 'psychedelic bioethics,' but their credentials aren't merely 'self-described.' Devenot completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the department of Bioethics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and is an affiliate researcher with the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation at Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics. The other speakers included Brian Pace, who introduced himself as a lecturer teaching psychedelic studies in the Department of Plant Pathology at Ohio State University, and Russell Hausfeld, who stated that he was there in his capacity as a journalist who reports on psychedelics and never claimed expertise in the psychedelic field. While it's true that none of the members of Psymposia disclosed their affiliation to the organization during the public comment portion of the hearing, they didn't have to. The FDA guidelines given to all speakers during the public comment period were 'to advise the committee of any financial relationship that you may have with the applicant,' which Devenot, Hausfeld, and Pace do not have. The day before the hearing, the three speakers published a press release stating their affiliation with Psymposia, and Hausfeld had previously disclosed his affiliation with Psymposia in a May 30 email to the advisory committee, clarifying that he would be speaking on behalf of himself, not the organization. When the advisory committee declined to recommend acceptance of Lykos' application, the Heroic Hearts Project veterans group published a statement claiming 'ICER relied on' Devenot and Psymposia while drafting the report. However, Devenot told me that neither they—nor, to their knowledge, anyone from Psymposia—was even aware that ICER was working on a draft report before its publication. In a transcript I reviewed of an interview between the reporters and three Psymposia members, Devenot said, 'We found out about the draft the same time the rest of the field found out about it.' The published story seems to suggest otherwise, arguing that 'Psymposia ramped up efforts to thwart Lykos's application,' adding that the group eventually 'found an audience' with ICER, resulting in the report echoing many of Psymposia's ethical concerns. Perhaps one of the most egregious parts of the story, though, occurs when describing a documented case of a MAPS facilitator sexually assaulting a patient during and after the Phase 2 trials. The NYT authors write of 'an ethical violation that occurred in an early Lykos trial that was not part of the company's F.D.A. application, when a husband-wife therapy team in Canada spooned and cuddled a participant, Meaghan Buisson, during her MDMA session.' The story neglects to mention that Buisson, who was there in part to address sexual trauma she'd previously experienced, immediately started crying and curled into a ball when the male facilitator, Richard Yensen, asked her if she wanted to 'lie down and spread her arms and legs.' When Yensen tries to put a hand on her shoulder, she shakes it off. Later in the video, she's sobbing and saying 'Stop' as Yensen lays on top of her, restraining her movement. The article continues to minimize the sexual assault by pointing out that Yensen 'began a sexual relationship' with Buisson 'after the trial concluded.' Several crucial facts are left out of this description. Most obviously: Legally, and ethically, a patient cannot consent to a sexual relationship with their therapist, which MAPS notes in a statement it made about the incident in 2019. (Yensen's defense in the civil suit Buisson brought against him? He was an unlicensed therapist and thus had no 'duty of care' to her.) Additionally, the trial was not over when the sexual abuse began. I contacted the journalists who wrote the NYT story with detailed questions about these exclusions. A spokesperson for the publication responded with the following statement: 'This piece of independent journalism was thoroughly reported and fact-checked, and The Times stands behind its publication.' RFK Jr. has a long history of ignoring the minutiae and nuances of clinical data in favor of a zealous belief in unproven remedies with dramatic anecdotal evidence. The NYT story hints at this connection. After mentioning the FDA's ongoing review of Lykos' data, the authors write, 'Some advocates hope that the Trump administration will take a friendlier approach,' specifically noting Elon Musk and RFK Jr. as 'vocal supporters of psychedelic medicine.' Kennedy made his position clear. In October, after Trump announced that he would nominate the anti-vaccine activist for the position, Kennedy tweeted, 'FDA's war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics … and anything else that advances human health and can't be patented by Pharma.' Lykos is a pharmaceutical company and has filed several patents related to MDMA formulation. Investors know this even if the new HHS secretary doesn't—after Kennedy's nomination advanced out of committee on Feb. 4, shares in biotech companies making psychedelic therapies soared. Now a newly confirmed Health and Human Services secretary, Kennedy has the power to reverse what he calls the FDA's 'scandalous' decision or otherwise influence the ongoing FDA review of Lykos' Phase 3 data. When vague accusations of 'DEI' and 'wokeness' are already being used to gut government programs, it might not be a bad time to blame the FDA's decision on 'a small band of anticapitalist activists.' Michael Abrams, a senior researcher in Public Citizen's Health Research Group, told me he thinks it's unlikely that Kennedy would completely reverse the decision, but it's possible that 'the next time it goes through review, we might see the standards lowered, and the process goes a bit smoother for the sponsor.' Kennedy is already implementing changes at HHS that limit public input. On Feb. 28, he placed a statement in the Federal Register rescinding the public comment period where members of the public can argue for or against proposed HHS plans. Although the mandate doesn't necessarily affect FDA decisions, it's a troubling sign for transparency from the agency that oversees the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control, among other federal health bodies. The public narrative about what happened with MDMA-AT is important, as more potential psychedelic therapies are certainly in the pipeline. Painting the final stages of the FDA approval process as unnecessary and easily corruptible—as the NYT article did—may serve a larger 'MAHA' agenda of eliminating or severely restricting vital oversight. Kennedy—perhaps best known for his anti-vaccine advocacy—has spent decades suggesting that the decisions of federal oversight committees and medical associations can't be trusted due to conflicts of interest and corruption, an assertion some advocates for MDMA-AT also made after the FDA's decision. The NYT story seems to underscore this narrative by claiming Psymposia 'derail[ed] the approval of MDMA-assisted therapy' by committees like ICER that would otherwise have supported the application. In lieu of rigorously conducted clinical trials, Kennedy often cherry-picks dramatic and heart-wrenching anecdotal evidence to support his claims. For example, last year, he reposted an image of school shooters with the antidepressants they were allegedly taking. There is no evidence to suggest that SSRI drugs are a cause of school shootings. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the efficacy of MDMA-AT on post-traumatic stress disorder. It has undeniably helped people who were struggling, many of whom are veterans and spoke at the FDA advisory committee. The unmet need for PTSD treatment has made psychedelic-assisted therapy a more bipartisan subject than it might be otherwise. (In 2024, Kennedy said that veterans are 'the most deserving of benefiting from psychedelic therapy.') The NYT story highlights this angle as well. It quotes Jonathan Lubecky, a retired U.S. Army sergeant and a psychedelic medicine policy advocate, who notes that many of his friends have 'fallen into despair' since the FDA's decision and that ''Some, quite frankly, are trying to decide whether they should stick around long enough to see it happen.'' It's a heartbreaking quote. Given the reporters' emphasis on Psymposia's disclosures, however, it is curious that the story doesn't mention that Lubecky was employed by MAPS from 2018 to 2023. Public health experts largely disagree that Psymposia could have such a dramatic effect on the FDA approval process. 'It's absurd, absolutely silly to say that five or six people undermined the success of Lykos' application,' said Ostacher. 'I'm really concerned that the true believers are driving the narrative about [psychedelic-assisted therapy] in a way that will make it very difficult for people not to believe the results of flawed trials.' Abrams agreed, adding that the committee didn't need to be experts in psychedelics to understand the application before them. 'The committee is smart, they understand things like bias, they understand things like liver toxicity, and reporting adverse events,' he said. 'But that's more nuanced than the rather provocative 'Leftist anticapitalist activists torpedoed multimillion-dollar case for veterans and cops' narrative.' But if anyone likes a 'provocative' theory that contradicts the medical establishment and paints the FDA as easily corruptible, it's RFK Jr.—and he doesn't need help from the Gray Lady to do it.
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
New York Magazine partnered with anti-psychedelics activists on MDMA series
In 2022, New York Magazine produced a podcast about the dangers of MDMA-assisted treatment for people dealing with post-traumatic stress, along with two leaders of an activist group dedicated to stopping the practice from becoming legal in the US. Now, the group is coming under greater scrutiny for its at times aggressive tactics, putting a spotlight on why the activist duo had editorial control over a major publication's podcast. Last week, The New York Times published a story about how Psymposia successfully helped derail an effort last year to convince the Food and Drug Administration to approve MDMA-assisted treatment for people dealing with post-traumatic stress. The story noted that two of the former primary figures in the group, David Nickles and Lily Kay Ross, had long been engaged in efforts to stop psychedelic therapy, including by exaggerating its risks, and tamp down criticism of their own group and its tactics. In a since-deleted 2018 post, Nickles 'outlined strategies for damaging psychedelic companies and nonprofits through persistent, critical media coverage and sabotaging 'business operations in ways designed to raise the costs of operating.'' In 2022, New York produced Cover Story, a limited series podcast, whose first season was about the dark side of psychedelic-assisted therapy. The show quoted Ross heavily as a source. But in an unusual arrangement, it also made her and Nickels co-producers on the show. (Psymposia said on its website that the group itself was a co-producer.) In a statement, a Vox Media spokesperson told Semafor that although they were producers on the show, Ross and Nickles were two members of a larger production team that included others with editorial oversight. 'New York Magazine retained full editorial control of the podcast, which was rigorously reported and thoroughly fact-checked, and raised important questions about the psychedelic renaissance that warranted deeper exploration,' the spokesperson said. In a statement to Semafor, Ross and Nickles said the New York podcast clearly explains how they are situated, and the accompanying articles for New York show the depth of their research and investigations into the world of psychedelic therapy. 'The New York Times article contains numerous inaccuracies and misleading assertions which we are working to get the paper to correct,' they wrote, disputing some parts of the Times' timeline. The Times also separately singled out Vox for repeating an explosive accusation that one of the therapists who took part in clinical psychedelic therapy trials, Veronika Gold, had admitted in her book to pinning down a screaming patient. The paper reported that the incident was actually much more complicated than it has been presented in the media, including a 2024 Vox article. Following Semafor's inquiry, a Vox Media spokesperson said the story had been updated and corrected to reflect that the drug used in the session was ketamine, not MDMA, and updated to include more context from Gold's account of the therapy session at the center of the allegation. The Times has done significant reporting on psychedelic therapy recently, rolling out a long feature late last year about veterans seeking out treatment in Mexico. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's nominee to run the Food and Drug Administration, has expressed openness to expanding access to psychedelics if he's confirmed, a prospect that excites advocates.
