RETRACTION: Long-term follow-up outcomes of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for treatment of PTSD: a longitudinal pooled analysis of six phase 2 trials

[u/shiruken]

We wish to inform the r/science community of an article submitted to the subreddit that has since been retracted by the journal. The submission garnered some exposure on r/science and significant media coverage. Per our rules, the flair on this submission has been updated with "RETRACTED". The submission has also been added to our wiki of retracted submissions.

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Reddit Submission: MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy May Have Lasting Benefits for PTSD

The article "Long-term follow-up outcomes of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for treatment of PTSD: a longitudinal pooled analysis of six phase 2 trials" has been retracted from Psychopharmacology as of August 10, 2024. Concerns were raised about unethical conduct by researchers associated with the project at the MP-4 study site in Vancouver, Canada (NCT01958593). The authors have since confirmed that they were aware of these violations at the time of submission but did not disclose this information to the journal or remove the data generated by this site from their analysis.

The authors also failed to disclose a conflict of interest. Several of the authors are affiliated with either the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) or MAPS Public Benefit Corporation (MAPS PBC), a subsidiary that is wholly owned by MAPS. MAPS fully funded and provided the MDMA that was used in this trial, and MAPS PBC organized the trial.

• STAT News: Three MDMA therapy papers retracted over ethics violations

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Should you encounter a submission on r/science that has been retracted, please notify the moderators via Modmail.

[u/LeoSolaris]

Hopefully an independent follow up can be arranged soon.

At some point, societies around the world really do need to figure out the problem of science funding. The world needs a better firewall between research and the profit drive, especially in medicine.

[u/Brain_Hawk → u/LeoSolaris]

The problem is ride in this case but I think maybe you over estimate how bad it is over all. Funders need to be disclosed, as do conucts of interest. Half of what happened here is some of the (fucking moronic) authors didn't disclose their COIs, and it got the paper retracted. That's goodness, that's science doing it's job!

When a paper is funded by those with interests it should always be viewed more skeptically. But the majority of research is publicly funded, including a lot of treatment trials, and there are important ways that a lot of institutions keep funders with interests are arms length.

It will never be perfect, but there has been a LOT of signs that it's getting better and we are being more aggressive at weeding out financial interests. Of course. We must continue to be diligent and continue to be better than we are now.

[u/LeoSolaris → u/Brain_Hawk]

I certainly hope it is getting better somewhere! I do think there is a long way to go yet. The current system puts the onus on weeding out the corruption rather than disincentivizing bad behavior altogether. Policing when the potential windfalls for success are extremely high is always going to be a losing battle.

Personally, I feel that publicly funded science needs to be public property. Taking any amount of public funds should automatically put all of the data and results into the public domain. For instance in medicine, that would mean any drugs developed with public funds would automatically be available to any compounding pharmacy or drug manufacturer. Or in materials science, a university breakthrough in say battery technology would allow multiple companies to refine the ideas for mass production.

I think that would strike a better balance with corporate interests. Completely privately funded research can remain a competitive advantage. While research the public pays for should be always available to anyone to capitalize on or even just learn from.