It hasn't "been known", as there have never been any RCTs (and this is just a very small open-label trial). So we still have no idea whether or not this drug is actually of any use for PTSD or depression. We certainly can't that it "banishes PTSD" like the overhyped headline here says.
I remember all the studies on Ketamine that were posted to the front page of HN, and then we finally had a proper RCT which showed that, while ketamine was very effective in treating depression, the placebo was equally effective. Essentially it was hope that was resulting in the remission [1].
The thing with trials is chicken and egg. Big pharma ensures certain drugs are illegal and scientists cannot or have limited ways to study them. Some corrupt government departments even only permit studies if they are going to find out that those drugs are bad.
It's quite a dissonance that people pretend they don't see. Like with cannabis. Millions of chronic pain sufferers say it helps them and then you can look at studies, you can cherry-pick plenty that say it's a placebo.
Let's face it. Scientists, politicians are all corrupt and honest ones can easily get cast out or made fall out of the window.
Umm, did you read about this study? It was widely criticized for a very good reason. They administered a dose of ketamine/placebo when the participants were in surgery and under general anesthesia. Not what's commonly done, and it tells us approximately nothing about its effects when administered normally.
Crazy that your first assumption is a conspiracy. Ibogaine would never represent any kind of competition to FDA approved pharmaceuticals, because of its cardiotoxicity: it can cause sudden cardiac arrest and death. There are many case studies of sudden death from ibogaine recorded in the literature.
You're thinking of Anslinger and Hearst. Big pharma would be the first to jump on this stuff - most of the experimentation is already done for them, they can just stick to what they know which is running clinical trials.
Most psychedelics like MDMA or LSD are synthetic; there are only a few naturally occurring ones like psylocibin or LSA (the natural precursor to LSD) and most of them already have synthetic analogues. Many of them were made by pharma companies: Merck first synthesized MDMA over a century ago and patented several variants, long before anyone realized what it was good for.
The FDA grants forms of exclusivity other than patents which would apply and pharma has developed plenty of ways to modify molecules to repatent them like turning them into salts or hydrides, adding amino acid caps, creating alternative methods of application like nasal sprays, etc. It's actually really easy to do which is what led to the proliferation of "research chemicals" over the last twenty years.
thats like asking when do we lynch hackernews for banning the majority of people who would otherwise post here? sorry but theres a lot of money invested in particular agendas
I don’t see the international hackernews conspiracy. 99.9% of the world has not heard of hacker news. The pharma industry doesn’t own the US, any more than big fast food, lawyers in general, US automobile dealerships, the petroleum industrial complex, etc.
I’d say they all want to continue to make big profits and push for things that help them.
Governments are made of people. People who like money and are more loyal to money than the voters. Voter can't buy politician a nice beach front property or placement at prestigious school for children. Big pharma can do that easily.
They just need to make enough theatre for general public to believe they serve them and just let that cash roll in, while they make lives of millions a misery.
I’m no fan of big pharma I’m just saying the government had a big role in fighting against research in to these drugs. I don’t know if lobbying would have been successful against Reagan or Bush for example.
The pharma industry spends more money lobbying US politicians than any other, almost twice as much as the next largest spender; 64% of pharma lobbyists are former government employees
