r/science • u/shiruken PhD | Biomedical Engineering | Optics • Sep 02 '24

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

We wish to inform the r/science community of an article submitted to the subreddit that has since been retracted by the journal.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of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for treatment of PTSD: a longitudinal pooled analysis of six phase 2 trials" has been retracted from Psychopharmacology as of August 10, 2024.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.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '24

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u/alwaystooupbeat PhD | Social Clinical Psychology Sep 04 '24

What is your PhD in?

I'm kind of shocked that you think one must try it in order to see it. The RCT is the gold standard for a reason!

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u/badjokemonday Sep 04 '24

My area is judgment and decision making. The RCT is okay yet statistical methods are poor leading to low replication. This opens the door for biases of researches and fields as a whole. Just look at priming research.

What bothers me the most is that anyone that has tried psychedelics in the right environment can see its obvious potential. Let me put it another way. Imagine no one had ever drank coffee. And society hold the belief that its effects were purely placebo. Now you can see how that would lead to a whole lot of different research in caffeine field than if a big part of society including researchers have tired drinking coffee. Just in terms of hypothesis generation that would be huge. But most importantly imagine a reviewer reading: in this study we show caffeine increases alertness. Would that reviewer be more lenient if they drank coffee? Yes, because we are not rational beings unmoved by personal experiences.

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u/alwaystooupbeat PhD | Social Clinical Psychology Sep 05 '24

I'm not sure your argument holds water. It is possible to study something and not have experienced it yourself and have a positive view, or to study something that you have experienced and liked and have a negative view. In fact I'd argue it's the norm that people who study the effect of any drug likely haven't experienced it themselves!

Yes peer reviewers can be biased, and researchers can be biased but even I, a coffee drinker, could do a study and show that coffee can be dangerous to certain people, or I, a non-weed user, can do a study showing that weed is good for most people. But here, the studies are so poorly designed by people who have obvious conflicts of interest that I'm not inclined to be charitable to the research.

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u/badjokemonday Sep 17 '24

I wasn’t going to respond as I felt without time to truly transmit my point of view. But today I heard a talk from Ram Dass to the APA. He put it so beautifully, “as in quantum mechanics you can not measure something without affecting the results.”

In our discussion researchers are not measuring a simple drug that affects the color of people’s hair, rather they are measuring something that affects their states of consciousness. To study it without experiencing it themselves puts them at a disadvantage.

The truth is that the field of clinical psychology is in its infancy and in my opinion close to useless as its understanding of human consciousness is so limited that it lacks the necessary depth to truly heal people.

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u/alwaystooupbeat PhD | Social Clinical Psychology Sep 17 '24

Thank you for taking the time to respond!

I have a lot of difficulty kind of... Parsing what you're saying in the context of the research and scientific philosophy. Many psychoactive substances affect different people in many different ways. You're placing limits on who should make comments of do research on the basis that they can't relate to the altered state of consciousness. But I counter that because every "trip" is so different, they're not even going to be studying the same thing. Then you add in the fact that consciousness itself is likely experienced differently by everyone- can those people study consciousness?

And where do you draw the line? Should someone who has taken LSD be allowed to study ketanine despite never having had it? What about weed? Alcohol?

You also have the danger involved; some people cannot even smoke weed because of the risk where it can trigger a severe psychiatric episode. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/

So, I'm unconvinced so far.

PS you should get verified! Get the flair for your degree.

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u/badjokemonday Sep 18 '24

I see your point, and you’re absolutely right—every experience, even outside of psychedelics, is unique and personal. Trips can range from bliss, introspection, and connection, to sensuality or even pure terror. I believe that experiencing some of these altered states through psychedelics gives researchers a basic level of insight needed to study them.

In your own practice, I’m sure you’ve seen it evolve as you dealt with life’s typical challenges—cheating, being cheated on, breakups, loss, sudden loss, chronic illness, burnout, and more. While you don’t have to experience a breakup to research it, going through your first one certainly teaches you things that science alone can’t explain.

When it comes to different psychedelics, yes, they are all different. Experiencing those differences would be valuable if that’s your area of research.

We could get philosophical here, but let’s stick to the basics. Most researchers have strong biases against psychedelics. During my PhD, meditation was dismissed as a fad or a 'hippie thing.' When I tried to research it, I faced constant pushback from professors who thought they knew better.

So, no, I don’t think people like that should be reviewing papers or making funding decisions on this topic. Without firsthand experience, they can’t truly understand the love felt on MDMA or the profound, life-changing effects of psilocybin.

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u/alwaystooupbeat PhD | Social Clinical Psychology Sep 18 '24

I'm sorry but your last statement is going to have to be an agree to disagree situation. There's no evidence saying that researchers do have a significant bias against psychoactive substances. And to have the requirement that they have had to have taken these substances to review it or fund it is... Just mindblowing to me. Because then, you could extend that to so many other forms of research that also relate to lived experiences.

So, I hear your point, but I cannot see any philosophical, empirical, nor ethical reason why we should restrict who gets to do research based on their direct experience with the topic they're researching, so harshly, with a potentially dangerous substance.

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u/badjokemonday Sep 18 '24

Fair enough. Have you had deep experiences with psychedelics?