Flying in the face of stats from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that say veterans continue to commit suicide at higher rates than non-veterans, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week declined to approve MDMA, a psychedelic compound, as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Policymakers have been aware of the problem of veteran suicide since at least the late 1950s, but stunning statistics beginning in the mid-1990s, shortly after U.S. military intervention in Iraq, brought the issue out of the shadows.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 6.2% of Americans are considered veterans. Recent data from a 2023 VA report shows that between 6,000 and 6,700 veterans took their own lives each year between 2001 and 2021, about 16.4 each day. A widely-cited 2013 VA report put the number at 22 per day, but other studies suppose it could be as high as 44.
The 2023 report says that for 2021, the most recent data available suggests it’s 17.5 per day, compared to 109 per day among non-veterans — some of whom also experience PTSD for non-combat reasons, like sexual trauma or severe disruption to relationships with family or friends. The link between PTSD and suicide is well documented .
The FDA, for now, has decided that doing nothing about it remains the best course of action.
“There’s only two drugs that are currently approved by the FDA to treat PTSD, and they’re both antidepressants,” said Dr. Raymond Turpin, a Waynesville-based psychologist and researcher who’s worked in the field for decades and conducted an expanded access program authorized by the FDA. “Anybody that’s ever had PTSD knows that depression is often a secondary effect of having PTSD, but these medicines don’t begin to touch the symptoms of PTSD. They don’t do anything for the intrusive memories, the nightmares, the flashbacks, the anxiety. They’re just very ineffective.” Related Items
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As veterans with PTSD continue to die by suicide, FDA demands do-over for MDMA trials
