EMERGENCY Podcast: FDA's Disastrous Meeting on Approving MDMA Therapy For PTSD with Dr. Matthew Johnson
A critical review of the FDA's shit-show panel meeting on approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD.
Hi everyone,
I was supposed to be enjoying hiking the glorious Swiss Alps last week, intentionally taking time off work, but I was (temporarily - don’t worry) disrupted by the disastrous FDA meeting on MDMA therapy for PTSD.
To dissect what happened at the committee meeting, I invited the perfect expert in the field Dr. Matt Johnson (previous guest on the show) from Johns Hopkins psychiatry. Matt is the leading pioneer of clinical psychedelic research and has also studied a vast number of psychoactive drugs.
He’s my go-to scientist on this subject because he veers away from both “MDMA will cause holes in your brain” pharma propaganda and “everyone should be tripping on shrooms to meet their ancient ancestors” ideology. He’s one of the few sane, balanced voices in this space awfully corrupted by leftist dogma and FDA-supported misinformation on the other side.
In this (relatively trivial) “emergency” podcast, we explore the concerns raised by the FDA committee, uncover potential biases, and discuss the impact of prior MDMA use on therapy outcomes. We tackle critical issues such as cardiovascular risk management, the importance of ethical guidelines in psychedelic therapy, and the challenge of functional unblinding. We highlight why MDMA-assisted therapy holds promise despite the controversy.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction & FDA's recent meeting on MDMA Therapy
28:03 Prior Use of MDMA and its Impact
32:51 The Need for More Expertise in Psychedelics
53:16 The Safety of the Drugs - Valid & Invalid Risks
01:04:35 Comparing the Standards for Evaluating MDMA Therapy
01:19:46 Balancing Risks and Benefits
Ok, back to the Swiss Alps…see you guys soon (LOTS of new podcasts in the queue).
- Rav
Ways to support The Illusion of Consensus:
Become a paid or founding member to receive early-access episodes and ask questions for future episodes.
Support The Illusion of Consensus with a donation
Subscribe to our YouTube and Rumble channels
Follow us on Apple podcasts and Spotify
In over two decades in treating PtSD with or without a TBI (cause a TBI will give you PTSD for free) I have found the most effective therapy is hyperbaric oxygen. But Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is the Cinderella of modern medicine an as it will never make Pharma money no one hears about it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8863239/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10630921/
As an aside, I found HBOT to cure Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (published 2005 PEDIATRICS). Took 15 years for another group to reproduce my findings, but the CDC still says it is not treatable and incurable (for Pharma).
For us lay people, it would be helpful to spell out what MDMA is in the first place!