On July 13, 2012, the Ethics Committee reviewed our responses to its initial rejection of the protocol for our proposed Australian study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, to be co-sponsored by the Australian non-profit Psychedelic Research in Science and Medicine (PRISM) and MAPS. In their letter, the Ethics Committee reiterated their decision to reject the study. PRISM and MAPS will continue working to initiate MDMA-assisted psychotherapy research in Australia.
Although the study is designed as a pilot study and we have plans to use the data in our larger cross-study meta-analysis, the Ethics Committee indicated that the study should include more subjects. MAPS and PRISM disagree with many of the Ethics Committee’s comments and will continue working to obtain approval for the study. We are hopeful that we will eventually be able to start MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD research in Australia.
