{"id":10967,"date":"2024-08-08T16:55:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T16:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=10967"},"modified":"2024-08-08T17:25:08","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T17:25:08","slug":"veterans-and-lawmakers-lobby-for-approval-of-mdma-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=10967","title":{"rendered":"Veterans and Lawmakers Lobby for Approval of MDMA Therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The F.D.A. is poised to rule on the therapeutic use of the club drug Ecstasy, a potential watershed moment in the nascent field of psychedelic medicine.<\/p>\n

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More than a half century after federal regulators banned most psychedelic compounds, the Food and Drug Administration is nearing a decision on a novel treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder that pairs talk therapy with MDMA, the club drug commonly known as Ecstasy or Molly.<\/p>\n

The decision, which is expected in the coming days, has generated a groundswell of lobbying by veterans groups, researchers and members of Congress from both parties. Eighty lawmakers signed letters<\/a> to the Biden administration this week, urging the F.D.A. to approve the application by the drug company Lykos Therapeutics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The campaign was prompted in part by an expert panel\u2019s unanimous rejection<\/a> in June of Lykos\u2019s application, because of what participants said were flaws in the company\u2019s clinical trials and insufficient data.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a mental health crisis and a suicide epidemic, with thousands of military veterans taking their own lives every year,\u201d said Representative Jack Bergman, Republican of Michigan and a former Marine Corps general who helped organize the letter\u2019s 60 backers in the House. \u201cI would just ask the F.D.A. to consider the negative ramifications of them not taking action, which means more veterans will die needlessly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The lobbying campaign, unusual for a prospective new drug, underscores the high stakes and intense emotions surrounding psychedelic medicine, a field that has been growing in recent years as the country\u2019s top universities race one another to establish psychedelic research institutes.<\/p>\n

The passions \u2014 and the millions of dollars in private investment flooding the field \u2014 have been buoyed by a growing body of data suggesting that compounds like LSD, psilocybin mushrooms and MDMA can have significant therapeutic effects on hard-to-treat mental health conditions like depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. The federally prohibited substances are listed as Schedule I drugs that have \u201cno currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The F.D.A. is poised to rule on the therapeutic use of the club drug Ecstasy, a potential watershed moment in the nascent field of psychedelic medicine.More than a half century after federal regulators banned most psychedelic compounds, the Food and Drug Administration is nearing a decision on a novel treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder that pairs talk therapy with MDMA, the club drug commonly known as Ecstasy or Molly.The decision, which is expected in the coming days, has generated a groundswell of lobbying by veterans groups, researchers and members of Congress from both parties. Eighty lawmakers signed letters to the Biden administration this week, urging the F.D.A. to approve the application by the drug company Lykos Therapeutics.The campaign was prompted in part by an expert panel\u2019s unanimous rejection in June of Lykos\u2019s application, because of what participants said were flaws in the company\u2019s clinical trials and insufficient data.\u201cWe have a mental health crisis and a suicide epidemic, with thousands of military veterans taking their own lives every year,\u201d said Representative Jack Bergman, Republican of Michigan and a former Marine Corps general who helped organize the letter\u2019s 60 backers in the House. \u201cI would just ask the F.D.A. to consider the negative ramifications of them not taking action, which means more veterans will die needlessly.\u201dThe lobbying campaign, unusual for a prospective new drug, underscores the high stakes and intense emotions surrounding psychedelic medicine, a field that has been growing in recent years as the country\u2019s top universities race one another to establish psychedelic research institutes.The passions \u2014 and the millions of dollars in private investment flooding the field \u2014 have been buoyed by a growing body of data suggesting that compounds like LSD, psilocybin mushrooms and MDMA can have significant therapeutic effects on hard-to-treat mental health conditions like depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. The federally prohibited substances are listed as Schedule I drugs that have \u201cno currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10969,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10970,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10967\/revisions\/10970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}