View on Namche Bazar, Khumbu district, Himalayas, Nepal.

Intersectionality, Indigeneity, and Disability Climate Justice in Nepal

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Pratima Gurung, Penelope J.S. Stein, and Michael Ashley Stein

The climate crisis disproportionately impacts marginalized populations experiencing multilayered   and intersecting oppression, such as Indigenous Peoples with disabilities. To achieve climate justice, it is imperative to understand how multiple layers of oppression — arising from forces that include ableism, colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism — interact and cause distinctive forms of multiple and intersectional discrimination. Only by understanding these forces can we develop effective, inclusive climate solutions.

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Berries, tomatoes, and green beans in small green containers at farmer's market.

Food is Medicine Approaches to Address Diet-Related Health Conditions

Hannah Rahim Leave a comment

By Hannah Rahim

Food is Medicine interventions aim to prevent and treat diet-related chronic health conditions and reduce food insecurity by providing food to individuals and communities, in connection with the health care system. While Food is Medicine has been gaining prominence in recent years, it has also received some criticism. This article will explore the development of Food is Medicine and its limitations, and briefly offer recommendations for successful Food is Medicine initiatives.

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Person examining psilocybin mushrooms in lab.

Psychedelic Inequities and Unexplored Risk: Colonization, Commercialization, and Regulation

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff

By Tegan M. Carr

As a researcher studying the psychedelic experiences of people of color in hopes of driving equitable psychedelic health care, I’m concerned about the ways in which Black, Brown, and Indigenous contributions have been excluded in the development of the psychedelic field and investigation of novel psychedelic therapies. By excluding diverse contributions to the psychedelic field, we risk establishing psychedelic practices that exacerbate racial health inequities (disparities) in which people of color experience worse health outcomes as compared to whites on a population level. These patterns are already emerging in therapeutic psychedelic outcomes.

This piece identifies three interrelated topics that warrant scrutiny as drivers of psychedelic racial health inequities: the colonization of psychedelics, psychedelic commercialization & rent-seeking, and regulatory processes.

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Culturing cells in tissue culture plates.

R&D Mini-Me? New Legal Questions for Organoids

Adithi Iyer Leave a comment

By Adithi Iyer

I have written previously about the not-so-distant possibility and promise of regenerative medicine, an area concerned with therapies that encourage the body to repair or heal itself. Cell-mediated and tissue-based technologies hold promise in inducing self-repair from within the body, and they’re making their way to market in traditional medicine. Much has been made of recently discussed CAR-T cell therapies for cancer, which have been around since 2017, and in-human sickle cell treatment Casgevy. Such applications of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering are wide-spanning and range across the bench-to-bedside pathway.

One application of regenerative medicine gaining some ground in the R&D space is the organoid. Organoids are lab-grown masses of cells and tissue that assemble to form miniature organs or organ systems in vitro. They come, too, in different forms and types, and while some organoid applications are heavily modified for specific functions, many are meant to recreate and model the naturally occurring organ systems we would find in our own bodies.

Organoids may sound especially futuristic, but are currently used regularly in labs for different research and therapeutic applications. A functional “organ” model not attached to a human body could offer the opportunity to model diseases and test treatments in real time without the need for an animal model (like the mice used today), especially in preclinical and early clinical trials for new drugs. Organoids generate information and data, and a single organoid model can even be hooked up to a “system” with other organoids to model systems and interrelated processes at once. The production of these models occurs in-lab, often involving stem cells that can divide and organize into tissues and organs on their own.

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Two hands exchanging a pill.

Let Go and Surrender: Considerations on MDMA Couples Therapy and Coercive Control

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff

Note from Susannah Baruch, Petrie-Flom Center: Following this recent post in the Critical Psychedelic Studies symposium on the Bill of Health blog, two sets of researchers whose studies were described in the post expressed concerns that the post contained inaccuracies. As the Executive Director of the Petrie-Flom Center, which publishes Bill of Health, I made the decision to temporarily remove the original post to look at the issues carefully and to give the author and researchers more time and space for discussion. The original post is now back up [below] with an addendum from the author. My thanks to everyone involved for being helpful and patient while we gathered more information.

By Kayla Greenstien

From 2016 – 2022, I worked in client-facing community support work, focusing on domestic abuse and sexual assault. Throughout this time, I regularly witnessed how the mental health system struggled to respond to non-physical violence in the form of coercive control — an insidious form of abuse that involves intimidation, threats, and manipulation to restrict the autonomy of another person. On countless occasions, I saw coercive and controlling behavior entirely attributed to mental illness, resulting in missed opportunities and devastating injustices. Outside of work, I also started to notice how little of the content in my psychology coursework discussed domestic abuse. Little (if any) content focused on the psychology of people who engage in abuse and coercive control. Despite more open discourse on domestic abuse, it seemed like the mental health system was still deeply reticent to talk about power and control.  

At the same time, a new wave of research on psychedelic and MDMA therapy was underway. In 2021, I signed up for a psychedelic therapist training program, and the next year I started a PhD in Australia, studying the theoretical underpinnings of psychedelic therapies. I saw psychedelic therapy as a “paradigm shift” in mental health care. I wanted to believe psychedelics could get rid of the patriarchy, just like Ben Sessa said it did at raves in the 1980s. (Sessa is now facing medical practitioners’ tribunal in the U.K. for an alleged relationship with a patient.) But as I learned more about the theories and practices accompanying clinical trials of psychedelics and MDMA, I found misogyny, queerphobia, and alt-right New Age spirituality woven throughout. When multiple reports of sexual abuse emerged from underground, ceremonial, and clinical trial settings, I heard the same tropes that are used to discredit women in court: “It was a consensual relationship…She has BPD and manipulated him…This is all about a scorned woman seeking and revenge…”. Slowly, I started to see how historic and contemporary discussions on psychedelic and MDMA research largely ignored theories on power, control, and abusive interpersonal relationships, particularly in couples therapy.   

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cell with pipette and needle.

Are Embryos Children? The Alabama Supreme Court Says Yes

Joelle Boxer Leave a comment

By Joelle Boxer

This month, the Alabama Supreme Court held that the term “children” in a state statute includes embryos, or “extrauterine children.”

As fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization (IVF) involve the creation of multiple embryos, not all of which are implanted, the implications of this ruling could be far-reaching. Four million births each year in the U.S. are via IVF, an important pathway to parenthood for couples with infertility, LGBTQ couples, and single parents.

This article will examine the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision in LePage v. Mobile Infirmary Clinic and its consequences for Americans building their families through fertility services.

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Birmingham, Alabama - February 8, 2020: University of Alabama at Birmingham UAB Hospital title and logo on brick facade.

The Beginning of a Bad TRIP – Alabama’s Embryonic Personhood Decision and Targeted Restrictions on IVF Provision

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By Katherine L. Kraschel

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court called frozen embryos created via in vitro fertilization (IVF) “extrauterine children” and referred to the cryotanks where they are stored as  “cryogenic nurser(ies).” The Court sided with couples who claim the accidental destruction of frozen embryos created through IVF and cryopreserved ought to be treated equally to the death of a child. 

The case, LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, involves plaintiffs seeking punitive damages from an Alabama fertility clinic for the “wrongful death” of their embryos that were destroyed when a patient in the hospital where they were stored removed them from the cryotank. While the lower Alabama Courts concluded that the cryopreserved embryos were not a person or child under the state’s law, the Alabama Supreme Court disagreed and held that the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,” and that the  plaintiff’s wrongful death claims could proceed. 

Thoughtful scholars have argued that existing state laws do not sufficiently redress mistakes and accidents that occur in the process of fertility care, pregnancy, and birth. However, the ends do not justify the means in this case; likening frozen embryos to children is not a legally sound mechanism to hold fertility clinics accountable for negligently storing embryos. It illustrates how sympathetic stories can be used to further the agendas of those who seek to equate embryos and fetuses  to “people” under the law and undercut the critical role modern fertility care plays in (re)defining the bonds that create families, and particularly, many LGBTQ+ and single parent families. 

Specifically, lawmaking in fertility care stands to fuel the movement to create fetal personhood rights and a federal abortion ban. It may also signify an inflection point in regulating assisted reproduction reminiscent of pre-Dobbs targeted restrictions on abortion provider (TRAP) laws that sought to limit abortion provision by imposing restrictions. TRAP laws’ new sibling – targeted restrictions on IVF Provision – or TRIP laws, as I call them, stand to rob patients of their ability to build their families by compelling physicians to provide less effective, more expensive care. TRIP laws will erect barriers and exacerbate long standing racial disparities in accessing fertility care, and they will disproportionately impact members of the LGBTQ+ community who wish to build families through fertility treatments.  The Alabama decision is severe, but it should serve as a warning to state legislators with a new responsibility to safeguard reproductive health care without the floor of Roe’s protections – proceed with extreme care and regard for “unintended” consequences of regulating fertility care.  Read More

baby feet

If You Give a Law Student a Baby

Bobby Stroup Leave a comment

Editor’s Note: Congratulations, Bobby, and welcome to the world, baby Stroup!

By Bobby Stroup

If you give a law student a baby, they’re going to look for legal risk. And if they live in the Bay State, they’re going to want a class on ‘MILK’ (Massachusetts Infant Legal Knowhow). 

Then, after learning about the relevant law and policy, they’re probably going to want to write a legal blog post. They’ll need to do additional research to see how they can legally imitate a popular children’s book. Their research will show that “fair use” allows them to parody the book series by exaggerating its format in a new story.  Read More

Healthcare concept of professional psychologist doctor consult in psychotherapy session or counsel diagnosis health.

Should a Psychedelic Therapist Be Able to Continue Therapy for Their Patients Beyond Formal Integration Sessions?

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Samuel Hatfield

Psilocybin and MDMA were recently rescheduled in Australia for clinical use, leading many mental health professionals to question how psychedelic therapy will work in practice. As part of a research team at the University of Sydney, I recently interviewed as number of experts in the field, with the aim of developing a comprehensive taxonomy of matters relating to psychedelic therapy that are or could be regulated. We also sought to identify where there was uncertainty or disagreement about the implementation of these matters. One point of contention was the provision of ongoing psychotherapy by the psychedelic therapist beyond the formal integration phase — which, given the vulnerability and suggestibility of patients undergoing psychedelic therapy, may give rise to important ethical considerations. With practitioners from a range of professions likely to act in the role of psychedelic therapist, this is an issue with cross-disciplinary relevance.

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Collage with one hundred dollars banknote in surreal style.

A Brief Political Economy of Hype

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Maxim Tvorun-Dunn

Silicon Valley depends on boom-and-bust cycles, manufacturing a new wave of investments every few months by promising grand technological revolutions, whether through AI, cryptocurrency, metaverses, or any other buzzword of the tech industry. These bubbles are furnished by media narratives and tech journalism. Through uncritical reporting of press releases and overexaggerating claims, news outlets help tech industrialists inflate their stock portfolios, while regularly ignoring the politics of privatization and automation. Reporting on psychedelics has followed similar trends, regularly positioning research on psychedelic therapy or drug manufacturing as Silicon Valley’s latest panacea.

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