Some 13 million Americans struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Existing therapies only bring relief for a fraction of patients, and new treatments are sorely needed, according to psychiatrists wrestling with the scale of the problem. So, there was distinct disappointment when an advisory committee at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted earlier this month against a therapy that many had hoped could offer the first new treatment for PTSD in 25 years.
A number of experts who study psychedelics have since spoken out in support of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and have sharply criticised the recommendations of the FDA’s Psychopharmacological Drugs Advisory Committee. But some are still optimistic that the treatment might be approved when the FDA delivers its final decision in August.
Ahead of the meeting, FDA approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD seemed likely, says Sandeep Nayak, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, who investigates psychedelics as treatments for substance use and mood disorders. About two-thirds of people who received three sessions of MDMA and talk therapy no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis at the end of two Phase 3 clinical trials.
It’s an outcome that is “almost double that of existing medications”, says Gül Dölen, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who researches the mechanisms of how psychedelics achieve therapeutic effects. “What’s more, [the treatment] led to durable improvements in these patients lasting at least six months.”
I would love to know how many members of this board have stock portfolios in pharmaceutical companies that are currently collecting huge amounts of money from antidepressants being used to treat people with PTSD.
Antidepressants that really aren’t effective in the treatment of PTSD but make the pharmaceutical industry a shitload of money.
Like most things, when we follow the money we learn why powerful people make the decisions they do. And I imagine this instance is no different.
The government doesn’t work for us. The war on drugs continues.
Psilocybin.
Let them use psilocybin, which more effectively treats the same symptoms of PTSD for a longer time with simpler therapy schedules and no physiological risks or side effects, and let the researchers pursue MDMA as long as they want until they can figure out an effective therapy that isn’t dangerous.
Psilocybin is not more effective for treating PTSD.
It’s great for anxiety depression, those are not PTSD.
And you and I have had this conversation before but you are still spouting the same nonsense.
Both are needed. And you are minimizing what the FDA is doing here and how it will hurt people with PTSD.
There’s no reason to use a second solution to the exact same symptoms that a safe, simple and effectively solution already resolves.
You can choose your own therapy, but it’s silly to tell people not to take the available, simpler, more effective proven solution in hopes that in the future a different solution will be available that might be as effective as psilocybin already is for these symptoms.
There is absolutely reason to pursue second, third, and fourth solutions to medical problems. There is 0 reason to assume that if treatment A is effective in 70% of patients and treatment B is effective in 70% that it’s the same 70%.
Braindead take.
As a child on a taco commercial once said
¿Por qué no los dos?
Both show promise though need further research to determine how they should be used most effectively and safely, they have similar legal hurdles, and different patients may respond better to one, the other, or possibly even a combination of both,
As I said, there’s no reason why not two.
Similarly, there’s no reason to make people wait for a potential mdma medication while psilocybin is available, effective against the exact same symptoms, perfectly safe and has a simpler therapy regimen.
Because not everyone is exactly the same. Different experiences, different histories, different types of injuries/traumas means different methods of treatment.
Yes psilocybin is good. But it may not be for everyone.
Nobody argued everyone’s the same.
All of the arguments that are put forth for using MDMA to treat PTSD symptoms already work for over 80% of patients using a single treatment of psilocybin that is already available.
Go ahead and research MDMA, but don’t deny people an available, effective, safe and simple treatment while we wait for the development of experimental therapies.
Again you’re spouting statistics with no scientific evidence to support them. I remember that study you linked with the 80%. That rate was not for PTSD but other chronic mental health conditions being treated with psilocybin.
Your claims have no evidence to support them so please stop. Because you’re not helping.
It’s fine if you didn’t read or don’t like that study.
Those symptoms resolved by psilocybin are the same as the PTSD symptoms that MDMA hopes to treat one day.
You not liking a particular medication doesn’t make it less effective or safe for people.
You might want to check out the news recently though, MDMA is specifically not being approved last weekend this week because a safe therapy has not been found, unlike with psilocybin.
Psilocybin is safe, simple and effective.
Controlled studies have born this out.
I love psilocybin. I used to grow them and still am fond of them and encourage others to explore them.
But it treating similar symptoms to PTSD is not the same as having an 80% success rate with actual PTSD, which is the claim you’re making and not the claim your study is making.
PTSD is not anxiety or depression, even if it can present with similar symptoms. Nor is it substance use disorder. It’s trauma and it requires safety and community to unpack.
Psilocybin is great at helping us develop a deeper relationship with ourselves and life generally. But the hormones released during an MDMA session better facilitate safety and connection.
Honestly I’m not trying to convince you in particular because we’ve had this conversation before and you’re unwilling to reexamine your own conclusions. But I’ll keep correcting the narrative for others who come along.
You do know the hope is not to treat symptoms but underlying disorders, right?
As much as I hate to say this, MDMA being used for treatment of mental illnesses might not be viable option because of it’s negative effects. I do not know if short term severe depression and long term memory loss is worth a reduction in PTSD. Maybe as a last resort medication similar to how methamphetamine is prescribed for drug resistant ADHD.
Make it legal for cluster headache treatment too.
Oh man, a thousand and 10%.
I did a deep dive into cluster headaches and that jaw nerve disorder that drives a lot of people to suicide, I really hope they do what psilocybin trial to relieve people of that.
Trigeminal neuralgia.
Yes 100%, people who have tried geminal neuralgia or any nerve damage and cluster headaches should probably try magic mushrooms.
Physiologically safe, rewires your brain in good ways in every study so far and a thousand anecdotal stories, why not try it?
