ROME — The total global volume of fish, shrimp, clams and other aquatic animals that are harvested by farming has topped the amount fished in the wild from the world’s waters for the first time ever, the United Nations reported Friday.

The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, in its latest report on fisheries and aquaculture — or farming in water — says the global catch and harvest brought in more than 185 million tons of aquatic animals in 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

Experts say the milestone in human history had been expected, as the hauls from fisheries have largely stagnated over the last three decades — largely because of limits in nature.

Manuel Barange, who heads FAO’s fisheries and aquaculture division, said aquaculture has benefited from a growing recognition of the nutritional benefits — like omega-3 and other micronutrients found in food from aquatic animals — and lesser environmental impact than food derived from land animals.

The total amount of aquatic animals captured in the wild fell from 91.6 million tons in 2021 to 91 million tons the following year, FAO said in its latest State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture report.

Global production rose to 94.4 million in 2022, up from 91.1 million a year earlier, it said.

Asia was the source of more than 90% of all aquaculture production of aquatic animals, the FAO added.

Some 90% of aquatic animals that are farmed or fished go to human consumption, with the remainder going to other uses like feed for other animals or fish oils.

The most common fish that are captured in the world’s oceans, seas, rivers, lakes and ponds include Peruvian anchovies, skipjack tuna and Alaskan pollock, while freshwater carp, oysters, clams, shrimp, tilapia and prawns are among the most harvested animal life.
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GENEVA — Scientific evidence documented in a series of articles presented by the World Health Organization this week highlights the harmful impact of climate change at key stages of the human life cycle.

“These provide important scientific evidence on how the health of pregnant women, newborns, children, adolescents and older people is affected by air pollution and different climate hazards, including wildfires, flooding and extreme heat,” Anayda Portela, director of the WHO’s department of maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and aging, said at a briefing Friday for journalists in Geneva.

“This evidence is critically important, because it shows the leading health risks for each of these groups for these different climate events,” Portela said.

She noted that the collection of articles published in the Journal of Global Health shows that climate-related health risks “have been crucially underestimated” for younger and older people and during pregnancy, “with serious, often life-threatening implications.”

The studies find that climate-related natural hazards have some “serious mental and physical health impacts” in pregnancy, and for younger and older people.

For example, the authors note that preterm births, which now are the leading cause of childhood deaths, “increase during heatwaves, while older people are more likely to suffer heart attacks or respiratory distress.”

They report that heatwaves also “affect cognitive function and therefore learning for children and adolescents.”

The World Meteorological Organization’s State of Global Climate report confirms 2023 as the hottest year on record and predicts that global temperatures over “the entire five-year 2024-2028 period will exceed 1.5 degrees centigrade above the pre-industrial era,” which scientists warn could lead to rapid and irreversible changes in the climate.

According to the World Health Organization, between 2030 and 2050, climate change is projected to cause approximately “250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress alone.”

Portela also warned that air pollution increases the likelihood of high blood pressure during pregnancy, low birth weight, preterm birth and negative impacts on fetal brain and lung development.

“It raises risk of respiratory illness among children and older people,” she said, adding that they also face greater risks of “cancer, cardiovascular disease and pneumonia.”

The studies detail the many noxious effects on mental and physical well-being from climate-related natural disasters, including flooding and drought, as well as wildfires, which have been shown to increase respiratory disorders and cardiovascular mortality rates for older people.

“There is an urgent need to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to build climate resilience, to take specific actions that protect health at these various life stages,” Portela said.

Authors of the reports note that “few climate adaptation measures are tailored for the specific needs of women, infants, children and adolescents,” as well as older people who may have mobility and cognitive constraints.

Nevertheless, the WHO urges governments to prioritize climate change as a health issue, pointing out several specific actions they can take to promote and protect health at different life stages.

For example, this could include flexibility around work hours, preparing childcare and educational systems for extreme weather events and rising temperatures, and informing people and communities about various measures that can protect vulnerable people during heatwaves and periods of worsening air pollution.
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MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Parts of the north side of Montgomery are defined by what it has lost: restaurants, grocery stores and a convenient pharmacy, the latter of which closed five years ago.

People who still live in the historically Black neighborhood of Newtown, like Sharon Harris, are frustrated. She goes to a different location of the same pharmacy chain, which is four miles from her home.

“You have to come back sometimes,” she said, “and then they wait so long to fill the prescription.”

In cities across the U.S., major retail pharmacies have closed hundreds of stores over the past few years and independents can’t always afford to stay open. That can leave residents of color without easy access to a business that provides not only prescriptions but also fundamental public health services like vaccinations, over-the-counter medicines and even food.

Closures create “a situation where there’s not just (a lack of) investment in terms of pharmacy development and expansion, but there’s no incentive to stay in those neighborhoods,” said Dima Qato, a professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California who has studied pharmacy access.

And an Associated Press analysis of licensing data from 44 states, data from the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs and the American Community Survey shows residents of neighborhoods that are majority Black and Hispanic have fewer pharmacies per capita than people who live in mostly white neighborhoods.

MAC Pharmacy is the only one serving about 20,000 people in a majority Black ZIP code in Cleveland. George Tadross, the part-owner and pharmacy manager, said he is adamant about making things as as easy as possible for his mostly older customers — sometimes by organizing their medications by day for them.

“You have to have a pharmacist to talk to,” he said. “My philosophy in the pharmacy business is you know your doctor, he knows everything about you. You need to know your pharmacist as well (because) the pharmacist is the only one that sees the whole medical treatment plan you have.”

Pharmacists play a role in managing chronic diseases like diabetes and heart-related issues, which Black and Hispanic people are more likely to be diagnosed with.

And when pharmacists or pharmacy technicians reflect their customer base — by speaking the same language or understanding the community — it can be easier to build a strong rapport and trust, said Jasmine Gonzalvo, who teaches at Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy and has researched the needs of Spanish-speaking patients at pharmacies.

She noted that if people don’t feel comfortable asking questions about the medication, then it might mean they don’t take it or don’t take it correctly.

“You don’t get a refill,” Gonzalvo said, “simply because there were barriers in the way of your communicating and feeling safe in that relationship with your pharmacist.”

That’s why Bert’s Pharmacy in Elizabeth, New Jersey, has “Spanish- and English-speaking staff all the time,” said owner and pharmacist Prakash Patel said. His business is located in an ZIP code where nearly 70% of the residents are Hispanic.

“We want to make sure, too, they understood everything,” Patel said. “We have Spanish-language labels for them, we print all the instructions in Spanish for them.”

In Montgomery, where Harris lives, the city is working on a development plan for the north side. A retail analysis in the plan shows a small pharmacy could generate $1.5 million in sales a year.

“There’s an opportunity there because you have what I call a captive market,” said Bob Gibbs, the director of Gibbs Planning Group, which did the analysis. “People that live in a lot of these neighborhoods have limited access to transportation … and they’re very loyal to local businesses that will treat them with respect.

“They will go out of their way just to go there. And they just don’t like having to drive … two miles to go to a drugstore. That’s unfair.”

Harris, though, doesn’t have much hope a new pharmacy will open.

“I don’t see it,” she said. “As long as they have (that CVS) they think it’s OK. … Everybody is waiting for them to do something on this side.”
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NEW YORK — The mysterious death of a man in Mexico who had one kind of bird flu is unrelated to outbreaks of a different type at U.S. dairy farms, experts say.

Here’s a look at the case and the different types of bird flu.

What happened in the Mexico bird flu case? A 59-year-old man in Mexico who had been bedridden because of chronic health problems developed a fever, shortness of breath and diarrhea in April. He died a week later, and the World Health Organization this week reported it.

The WHO said it was the first time that version of bird flu — H5N2 — had been seen in a person.

What’s been happening in the U.S. with bird flu? A different version of bird flu — H5N1 — has been infecting poultry flocks over the last several years, leading to millions of birds being culled. It also has been spreading among all different kinds of animals around the world.

This year, that flu was detected in U.S. dairy farms. Dozens of herds have seen infections, most recently in Iowa and Minnesota.

The cow outbreak has been tied to three reported illnesses in farmworkers, one in Texas and two in Michigan. Each had only mild symptoms.

What do the letters and numbers mean in bird flu names? So-called influenza A viruses are the only viruses tied to human flu pandemics, so their appearance in animals and people is a concern. These viruses are divided into subtypes based on what kinds of proteins they have on their surface — hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N).

Scientists say there are 18 different “H” subtypes and 11 different “N” subtypes, and they appear in scores of combinations. H1N1 and H3N2 are common causes of seasonal flu among humans. There are many versions seen in animals as well.

H5N1, the version that has worried some U.S. scientists lately, historically has been seen mainly in birds, but has in recent years has spread to a wide variety of mammals.

What is H5N2? H5N2 has long been seen in Mexican poultry, and farms vaccinate against it.

It’s also no stranger to the United States. An H5N2 outbreak hit a flock of 7,000 chickens in south-central Texas in 2004, the first time in two decades a dangerous-to-poultry avian flu appeared in the U.S.

H5N2 also was mainly responsible for a wave outbreaks at U.S. commercial poultry farms in 2014 and 2015.

How dangerous is H5N2? Over the years, H5N2 has teetered between being considered a mild threat to birds and a severe threat, but it hasn’t been considered much of a human threat at all.

A decade ago, researchers used mice and ferrets to study the strain afflicting U.S. poultry at the time, and concluded it was less likely to spread and less lethal than H5N1. Officials also said there was no evidence it was spreading among people.

Rare cases of animal infections are reported each year, so it’s not unexpected that a person was diagnosed with H5N2.

“If you’re a glass half full kind of person, you’d say, ‘This is the system doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: detecting and documenting these rare human infections, where years ago we were stumbling in the dark,'” said Matthew Ferrari, director of Penn State’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics.

Indeed, Mexico Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said kidney and respiratory failure — not the virus — actually caused the man’s death.

Some experts said it is noteworthy that it’s not known how he caught the man caught H5N2.

“The fact there was no reported contact (with an infected bird) does raise the possibility that he was infected by someone else who visited him, but it’s premature to jump to those conclusions,” said Richard Webby, a flu researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

What about other types of bird flu? At this point, H5N2 is still considered a minor threat compared to some of the other kinds of bird flu out there. Most human illnesses have been attributed to H7N9, H5N6 and H5N1 bird flu viruses.

From early 2013 through October 2017, five outbreaks of H7N9 were blamed for killing more than 600 people in China. And at least 18 people in China died during an outbreak of H5N6 in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

H5N1 was first identified in 1959, but didn’t really began to worry health officials until a Hong Kong outbreak in 1997 that involved severe human illnesses and deaths.

H5N1 cases have continued since then, the vast majority of them involving direct contact between people and infected animals. Globally, more than 460 human deaths have been identified since 2003, according to WHO statistics that suggest it can kill as many as half of the people reported to be infected.

Like other viruses, H5N1 as evolved over time, spawning newer versions of itself. In the last few years, the predominant version of the virus has spread quickly among a wide range of animals, but counts of human fatalities have slowed.
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Zimbabwe is facing long hours of power cuts due to its dilapidated infrastructure and the impact of recurring droughts on hydropower. To help, the United Nations Development Program is installing solar panels on government-owned health facilities. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Bulawayo.
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Boca Chica, Texas — SpaceX’s mega Starship rocket completed its first full test flight Thursday, returning to Earth without exploding after blasting off from Texas. 

The previous three test flights ended in explosions of the rocket and the spacecraft. This time, both managed to splash down in a controlled fashion. 

The world’s largest and most powerful rocket — almost 121 meters tall — was empty as it soared above the Gulf of Mexico and headed east on a flight to the Indian Ocean. 

Minutes after Thursday morning’s liftoff, the first-stage booster separated from the spacecraft and splashed into the gulf precisely as planned, after firing its engines. 

An hour later, live views showed parts of the spacecraft breaking away during the intense heat of reentry, but it remained intact enough to transmit data all the way to its targeted splashdown site in the Indian Ocean. 

“And we have splashdown!” SpaceX launch commentator Kate Tice announced from Mission Control at company headquarters in California. 

It was a critical milestone in the company’s plan to eventually return Starship’s Super Heavy booster to its launch site for reuse. 

SpaceX came close to avoiding explosion in March, but lost contact with the spacecraft as it careened out of space and blew up short of its goal. The booster also ruptured in flight, a quarter-mile above the gulf. 

Last year’s two test flights ended in explosions shortly after blasting off from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. The first one cratered the pad at Boca Chica Beach and hurled debris for thousands of feet (meters). 

SpaceX upgraded the software and made some rocket-flyback changes to improve the odds. The Federal Aviation Administration signed off Tuesday on this fourth demo, saying all safety requirements had been met. 

Starship is designed to be fully reusable. That’s why SpaceX wants to control the booster’s entry into the gulf and the spacecraft’s descent into the Indian Ocean — it’s intended as practice for planned future landings. Nothing is being recovered from Thursday’s flight. 

NASA has ordered a pair of Starships for two moon-landing missions by astronauts, on tap for later this decade. Each moon crew will rely on NASA’s own rocket and capsule to leave Earth, but meet up with Starship in lunar orbit for the ride down to the surface. 

SpaceX already is selling tourist trips around the moon. The first private lunar customer, a Japanese tycoon, pulled out of the trip with his entourage last week, citing the oft-delayed schedule. 

SpaceX’s founder and CEO has grander plans: Musk envisions fleets of Starships launching people and the infrastructure necessary to build a city on Mars. 
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Many Israeli and Palestinian children are suffering from trauma because of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing eight months of war between the two sides. Therapists in both communities say the emotional scars could linger for years. Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem.
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SHANGHAI, China — Novo Nordisk is facing the prospect of intensifying competition in the promising Chinese market, where drugmakers are developing at least 15 generic versions of its diabetes drug Ozempic and weight loss treatment Wegovy, clinical trial records showed.

The Danish drugmaker has high hopes that demand for its blockbuster drugs will surge in China, which is estimated to have the world’s highest number of people who are overweight or obese.

Ozempic won approval from China in 2021, and Novo Nordisk saw sales of the drug in the greater China region double to $698 million last year. It is expecting Wegovy to be approved this year.

But the patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Wegovy and Ozempic, expires in China in 2026. Novo is also in the midst of a legal fight in the country over the patent.

An adverse court ruling could make it lose its semaglutide exclusivity even sooner and turn China into the first major market where Novo is stripped of patent protection for the drugs.

Those circumstances have drawn several Chinese drugmakers to the fray. At least 11 semaglutide drug candidates from Chinese firms are in the final stages of clinical trials, according to records in a clinical trial database reviewed by Reuters.

“Ozempic has witnessed unprecedented success in mainland China … and with patent expiry so close, Chinese drugmakers are looking to capitalize (on) this segment as soon as possible,” said Karan Verma, a health care research and data analyst at information services provider Clarivate.

Front-runner Hangzhou Jiuyuan Gene Engineering has already developed one treatment that it says has “similar clinical efficacy and safety” as Ozempic and applied for approval for sale in April. The company has not published efficacy data and did not respond to a request for information.

The company said in January that it expected approval in the second half of 2025, but it cautioned that it would not be able to commercialize the drug before Novo’s patent expires in 2026, unless a Chinese court makes a final ruling that the patent is invalid.

The Danish company’s semaglutide patent is expiring in China far ahead of its expiry in key markets such as Japan, Europe and the U.S. Analysts attribute variations in patent expiry timelines to term extensions Novo has won in specific regions.

Even more pressing for Novo is the China patent office’s 2022 ruling that the patent is invalid for reasons related to experimental data availability, which the company has challenged.

China’s top court said it was not able to say when verdicts are likely ready.

A Novo spokesperson said it “welcomes healthy competition” and was awaiting a court decision on its patent case. The spokesperson did not answer follow-up queries on the matter.

Other Chinese drugmakers who are running the final stages of clinical trials for Ozempic generics include United Laboratories, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, Huadong Medicine and a subsidiary of Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group.

CSPC said in May it expected approval for its semaglutide diabetes drug in 2026.

Brokerage Jefferies estimated in an October report that semaglutide drugs from United Laboratories will be launched for diabetes in 2025 and obesity in 2027. United Laboratories did not respond to a request for comment.

Impact on prices

The number of adults who are overweight or obese in China is projected to reach 540 million and 150 million, respectively, in 2030, up 2.8 and 7.5 times from 2000 levels, according to a 2020 study by Chinese public health researchers.

If shown to be as safe and effective as Novo’s, Chinese drugmakers’ products will increase competition and bring down prices, analysts say.

Goldman Sachs analysts estimated in an August report that generics could lead to a price reduction of around 25% for semaglutide in China. The weekly Ozempic injection costs around $100 for each 3mL dose through China’s public hospital network, Clarivate’s Verma said.

Novo acknowledges the intensifying competition.

“In 2026 and 2027 we might see a few more players showing up due to the clinical trials” in progress, Maziar Mike Doustdar, a Novo executive vice president, told investors in March, referring to the China market.

But he also questioned the capability of some of the players to provide meaningful volumes, adding, “We will watch it as we get closer.”

Novo also faces competition from internationally well-known firms, including Eli Lilly, whose diabetes drug Mounjaro received approval from China in May. HSBC analysts expect China’s approval this year or in the first half of 2025 for Lilly’s weight loss drug with the same active ingredient.

Eli Lilly did not reply to a request for a comment on Chinese approval of the drug, which in the U.S. is called Zepbound.

Supplies of both Wegovy and Zepbound remain constrained, but the companies have been increasing production.

Zuo Ya-Jun, general manager of weight loss drugmaker Shanghai Benemae Pharmaceutical, said a product being competitive would depend on distinguishing features such as efficacy, durability of the treatment and a company’s sales abilities.

“It will be a market with fierce competition, but who will be [the leader] is hard to say,” she said.
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Geneva — The World Health Organization said Wednesday a person in Mexico had died in the first confirmed human case globally of infection with the H5N2 variant of bird flu.

The patient, who died on April 24 after developing fever, shortness of breath, diarrhea and nausea, had “no history of exposure to poultry or other animals” and “multiple underlying medical conditions,” the WHO said.

Mexican health authorities reported the confirmed case of human infection with the virus to the U.N. health body on May 23, after a 59-year-old was taken to a hospital in Mexico City.

The WHO said the case was the “first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with an influenza A(H5N2) virus reported globally”.

The source of exposure to the virus was unknown, the WHO said, although cases of H5N2 have been reported in poultry in the country.

According to the U.N. health body, H5N2 cases affected poultry in the state of Michoacan in March, with other outbreaks identified in the state of Mexico.

But it said establishing a link between the human case and the poultry infections was so far impossible, estimating the risk to people as “low.”

A different variant of bird flu, H5N1, has been spreading for weeks among dairy cow herds in the United States, with a small number of cases reported among humans.

But none of the cases are human-to-human infections, with the disease instead jumping from cattle to people, authorities have said.
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NEW YORK — The U.N. secretary-general said Wednesday that the world is “at a moment of truth” to reach targets in the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming, as the planet has just experienced the 12 hottest consecutive months on record.

“The truth is, almost ten years since the Paris Agreement was adopted, the target of limiting long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is hanging by a thread,” Antonio Guterres told an audience at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, where exhibits about extinct dinosaurs offered their own planetary warning.

“The World Meteorological Organization reports today that there is an 80% chance the global annual average temperature will exceed the 1.5-degree limit in at least one of the next five years,” he said.

“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet,” he warned in a special climate speech under the museum’s famous blue whale, marking World Environment Day.

The U.N. chief said the richest 1% of countries are emitting as much pollution as two-thirds of all humanity.

He said the planet is emitting around 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually and will burn through its remaining “carbon budget” of around 200 billion tons well before 2030. Guterres also said global emissions need to fall 9% each year between now and 2030 in order to keep the 1.5 degree Celsius limit alive. Last year, they rose by 1%.

The bill for the climate crisis will keep growing without meaningful action.

“Even if emissions hit zero tomorrow, a recent study found that climate chaos will still cost at least $38 trillion a year by 2050,” Guterres said.

Fossil fuels

The climate crisis has been a signature issue of Guterres’ tenure since becoming the world’s top diplomat seven-and-a-half years ago. He has repeatedly called for the phasing out of coal and other fossil fuels in favor of cleaner renewable energies like wind and solar power — which already produce nearly a third of the world’s electricity.

He raised the ante Wednesday, urging banks to stop financing oil, coal and gas and invest in renewables instead. He called on countries to ban advertising from fossil fuel producers and said news and technology platforms should stop taking their advertising.

“I call on leaders in the fossil fuel industry to understand that if you are not in the fast lane to clean energy transformation, you are driving your business into a dead end — and taking us all with you,” the U.N. chief said, adding that the oil and gas industry invested only 2.5% of its total spending on clean energy in the last year.

He urged public relations companies and lobbyists to stop enabling the industry’s “planetary destruction” and drop those clients.

“Many in the fossil fuel industry have shamelessly greenwashed, even as they have sought to delay climate action — with lobbying, legal threats, and massive ad campaigns,” he said.

Leveling the field

The secretary-general reiterated his stance that those who have contributed the least to the climate crisis are suffering the most — mainly poorer nations in Africa and small island states. The G20 major economies produce 80% of the world’s emissions.

“It is a disgrace that the most vulnerable are being left stranded, struggling desperately to deal with a climate crisis they did nothing to create,” he said.

Guterres warned that the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees could mean survival or extinction for some small island nations and coastal communities.

“1.5 degrees is not a target. It is not a goal. It is a physical limit,” he said.

Global warming is already hurting the planet’s oceans, their coral reefs and marine ecosystems, and melting sea ice. Across the globe, severe floods, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, and other climate-related catastrophes are becoming all too frequent.

The secretary-general said there must be more financing and technical support from richer countries to mitigate climate impacts and invest in renewables for lower income states. He also said a global early warning system must be in place by 2027, to protect everyone on Earth from hazardous weather, water or climate events.

He urged citizens to continue to make their voices heard and said it is time for leaders to decide whose side they are on.

“Now is the time to mobilize; now is the time to act; now is the time to deliver,” he said to a standing ovation. “This is our moment of truth.”
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washington — Federal health advisers voted Tuesday against a first-of-a-kind proposal to begin using the mind-altering drug MDMA as a treatment for PTSD, handing a potentially major setback to advocates who had hoped to win a landmark federal approval and bring the banned drugs into the medical mainstream. 

The panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration sided 10-1 against the overall benefits of MDMA when used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. They cited flawed study data, questionable research conduct and significant drug risks, including the potential for heart problems, injury and abuse. 

“It seems like there are so many problems with the data — each one alone might be OK, but when you pile them on top of each other … there’s just a lot of questions I would have about how effective the treatment is,” said Dr. Melissa Decker Barone, a psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

The FDA is not required to follow the group’s advice and is expected to make its final decision by August, but the negative opinion could strengthen FDA’s rationale for rejecting the treatment. 

The vote followed hours of pointed questions and criticisms about the research submitted on MDMA — sometimes called ecstasy or molly. Panelists pointed to flawed studies that could have skewed the results, missing follow-up data on patient outcomes, and a lack of diversity among participants. The vast majority of patients studied were white, with only five Black patients receiving MDMA, raising questions about the generalizability of the results. 

“The fact that this study has so many white participants is problematic because I don’t want something to roll out that only helps this one group,” said Elizabeth Joniak-Grant, the group’s patient representative. 

The FDA advisers also drew attention to allegations of misconduct in the trials that have recently surfaced in news stories and a report by the nonprofit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which evaluates experimental drug treatments. The incidents include a 2018 report of apparent sexual misconduct by a therapist interacting with a patient. 

Lykos Therapeutics, the company behind the study, said it previously reported the incident to the FDA and regulators in Canada, where the therapist is based. Lykos is essentially a corporate spinoff of the nation’s leading psychedelic advocacy group, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, which funded the studies. The group was founded in 1986 to promote the benefits of MDMA and other mind-altering substances. 

MDMA is the first in a series of psychedelics — including LSD and psilocybin — that are expected to come before the FDA in the next few years. The panel’s negative ruling could further derail financial investments in the fledgling industry, which has mainly been funded by a small number of wealthy backers. 

MDMA’s main effect is triggering feelings of intimacy, connection and euphoria. When used to enhance talk therapy, the drug appears to help patients process their trauma and let go of disturbing thoughts and memories. 

But the panel struggled with the reliability of those results, given the difficulties of objectively testing psychedelic drugs. 

Because MDMA causes intense, psychological experiences, almost all patients in two key studies of the drug were able to guess whether they had received the MDMA or a dummy pill. That’s the opposite of the approach generally required for high-quality drug research, in which bias is minimized by “blinding” patients and researchers to whether they received the drug under investigation. 

“I’m not convinced at all that this drug is effective based on the data I saw,” said Dr. Rajesh Narendran, a University of Pittsburgh psychiatrist who chaired the panel. 

Panelists also noted the difficulty of knowing how much of patients’ improvement came from MDMA versus simply undergoing the extensive therapy, which totaled more than 80 hours for many patients. Results were further marred by other complicating factors, including a large number of patients who had previously used MDMA or other psychedelics drugs recreationally. 
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