Joe Rogan Experience #2553 - Andrew Hubermsan · Aired Sep 14, 2026
Claim summary · not a verbatim quotation
MDMA-assisted psychotherapy trials failed for FDA approval recently due to issues with control conditions and instances of sexual impropriety by therapists.
The finding
What the evidence shows
Both issues named are real, but they were not the only reasons and the regulatory record is broader. At the June 2024 advisory committee meeting, members voted 9 to 2 that the data did not show the drug was effective and 10 to 1 that the risks outweighed the benefits, citing the fact that participants could tell whether they got the drug, how long the benefit lasts, the role of the talk therapy itself, and thin data on abuse potential. The FDA's August 2024 letter asked Lykos to run an entire additional Phase 3 trial. The misconduct case happened in a Phase 2 trial in Canada in 2015, and the regulatory concern attached to it was about adverse event reporting and data integrity, not the incident on its own.
Read the supporting source · www.prnewswire.com ↗Quick answer & review status
Quick answer
Is it true that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy trials failed for FDA approval recently due to issues with control conditions and instances of sexual impropriety by therapists?
Partly. The claim stretches what the evidence shows. Both issues named are real, but they were not the only reasons and the regulatory record is broader. Andrew Hubermsan said it (matched by voice) on Joe Rogan Experience #2553 - Andrew Hubermsan, aired Sep 14, 2026, at 13:52. The supporting source is prnewswire.com, linked below.
The context belongs here.
No separately verified on-air correction is recorded for this check. That is not a claim that nobody corrected it.
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- One selected claim from the episode
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