tv The Stream Al Jazeera March 3, 2023 5:30pm-6:01pm AST
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genetic resources with the potential, particularly for medical applications, all of great interest to mining companies. but their affairs of what could happen without regulation. we're only just starting to, to pair into those murky debts and understand what is there in our ability to impact on a system far outweigh how strips currently are, are evidence. so knowledge of what exists there. it seems to me to be prudent and precautionary to make sure that we don't destroy things before we fully had a chance to, to, to understand them, to explore them to study them. a treaty would govern human activity on an under the high seas and stop a free for all like unsustainable fishing practices. regulating how much and from where precious resources can be taken. that clark al jazeera, ah,
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geology 0 missile romilly, doha reminder of our top stories. guineas military leader has criticized what he call the degrading treatment of sub saharan africans into nicea. dozens of gannons have been repatriated after 2. his years president accused migrants of creating a crime wave. a senior member of tokyo, 6 party opposition alliance says it's pulling out of the block. it comes after the announcement on thursday to select a joint candidate to contest the presidential election. and may 5 members of the group want kamala college delux as their presidential candidate. but the leader of the i y parties as their proposed candidate saw a better match for president recipe that early and so the consumer has more from ankara today we heard the 2nd largest opposition party leader who also ran who also was an interior miss there during the late ninety's in truth here, she said that she is, i guess is because she, according to the public opinion, polls chemical,
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it stir old as an opposition candidate doesn't have my chance. and, and this is all on the polls. i'm kind of mayor monthly about it as someone made him a model in the polls come out as potential arrivals against president don. the call to bela lisa sentence, the 2022 nobel peace prize winner alleged by li etzky to 10 years in prison. the pro democracy activists was convicted of muddling and financing activities that violates public order. come by the position leader came, the call was being found guilty of treason and sentence to 27 years house arrest. the car was arrested in 2017 and charles with trying to overthrow the government inclusion with the u. s. is denied accusation. a funeral has been held in the elk implied west bang for a 15 year old palestinian killed by the israeli army on thursday. and it also was shot after its rainy falls in the town of as soon the occupied west bank 2 others were wounded. officials in gaza, goal for help to put out
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a fire alarm build site. they say the blaze, the blast days and calls and environmental catastrophe. if all the stories on a website is out there at doc, cologne, news, and half now in the news, i with elizabeth put on and ben next is the stream. here on out to sarah, talk the law a will. the law with neither side, willing to negotiate is the ukraine war becoming a forever war? is america's global leadership increasingly fragile? what will u. s. politics looked like as we had to the presidential election of 2024. the quizzical look us politics, the bottom line with . welcome to the stream at chevy, dean. ketamine therapy is quickly gaining popularity and seen as a life saving option for people suffering from treatment resistant mental health disorders like depression. but in the us, many or raising concerns that increased availability of ketamine is out pacing
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oversight of the drug. and they say that more research is needed. so today we ask is ketamine therapy, the future of mental health treatment. and of course we want you to join the conversation as always. so be sure to share your thoughts and questions with us on youtube. ah, johnny us to discuss all this from boston, dr. robert meisner, medical director of the academy in service and mclean hospital in philadelphia, dr. hannah mclean, a physician, psycho analyst and founder of sound mind center and from los angeles journalist for tessa latifah, who has documented her own experience with ketamine therapy online as well as in her writing. ok, thank you so much for being with us. such a fascinating topic. i want to start robert by kind of asking you how does ketamine work in this instance and why is it so useful for treating depression or is it
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thanks for having me and thank you for your interesting the topic. so we don't know precisely how academy works biologically, but we have a, a reasonable working hypothesis. and the key concept in that hypothesis is something called synoptic genesis. so now to genesis describes the brain's ability to essentially create new or novel connections that may not have been there before . so how does this happen? we think it involves something called an n m d a receptor and, and way through which ketamine antagonizes or prevents that receptor from operating as it usually does. that then leads to a cascade or a flow of other messaging molecules which communicate with each other. that leads to more and more what we call quote, down stream effects in the cell. you may have heard things about b, d,
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f. for example, a very popular object of study right now is well as interleukin in the immune system. there are many 2nd messenger other molecules down stream of this and m d receptor that ultimately through glutamate, we think in part yeah, lead to send out to genesis. so i have to say, i, you know, robert of coming from a doctor that was the most absorb layman explanation in a beautiful way. i was still able to follow you. so just for the audience, maybe people who may be struggling with some of that jargon. i want to share derek story that says someone who has some experience with kennedy and therapy. echoing a lot of what you say, but just with different words, take a listen. my 1st experience with all of your emotional trauma experience. you go separating yourself or is it allowed me
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to come back with it says i when you hear that, i mean how does that compare to your personal experience with ketamine therapy? i think it's really interesting because it seems that it had to be in therapy. there are kind of 2 things that are happening, there's the neurological changes, which the doctor just explained. and then there's also these kind of like mental realization that you're coming to and that secondary. but it's very powerful and that's how it was for me. i definitely felt very forgiving when i
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was doing how to me and i felt not only forgiving towards other people, but towards myself and my own maybe mistakes that i had made. and it was a sense of peace that was really comforting. and i appreciate you using those terms . i know that other people have used them also from the pre interview. i loved robert that you talk about ketamine being a great catalyze for humility and hearing for tis i say that and i'm curious, dr. hannah, you know, what is this about? is it about generating empathy? people have describe the experience as giving you new perspective. maybe an objective perspective on some subjective traumas? what can it be used to treat and, and who should be using it? yes, so i think that's a great question. and again, thanks for having me. it's amazing to be here and thanks for the interest in the subject. as robert said, you know, i think it's important i so i went through neurology,
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occupational medicine. so i go analytic training and, and now i teach therapists and facilitators how to facilitate how to become facilitators and ketamine assisted psychotherapy as well as working with mbm and phyllis. i've been and when i teach them, i always say here's the brain explanation. and here's the other explanation, which is how i want you to think about it. so the brain is really important, and it's important to think about how these like synopsis and the neuro plasticity occurs. but it's also just as important, if not more important in my mind. that these substances, whether it's ketamine, phyllis, simon, m d m a 5 m d m t. we have so many things coming down the pike. what they do is they help us get into our difficult, difficult experiences, get into the difficult memories and really process things that we couldn't process . and it's like, it seems so simple and yet it's like, you know,
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when they say it's like a 100 therapy sessions in one session. yes. and it isn't, it is, it's so, and i can talk about my own experience as well that i was i, as i was training to be a psycho analyst. they did 4 times a week for 4 years. psychoanalysis. like so that's, that's how you get trained as you receive and you also have patients. and for me, i had this idea of what my trauma was. i could tell it from like a 3rd party perspective. and i have one of the best analysts in philadelphia. he's actually 94 years old and he's trained a lot of the therapists and analysts here and it's like we can get to it, but we couldn't get into it and maybe or access it or process later. yeah. right. there was like, i couldn't put and i wanted to and i was ready and it wasn't like, wasn't ready to get it. and i could through ketamine, assisted psychotherapy and other psychedelic assisted therapy as the legal ones. because you can go to other countries and do legal versions of the things i was able to actually get into it and feel it and cry and process and it's like and then
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and then and then your, your trauma lifts or your difficulty and i'm like you know there's lots of different types of i'm and i want, i want to unpack all that i see for to so it seems like you wanna jump in as she was speaking there some things maybe echoed with you resonated yeah, well, so my 1st 2 sessions as ketamine, i actually went with my mom and she came and sat with me because i was very nervous . i was anxious about how i would feel on the drug. and so she came with me and we have a great relationship. but it really felt like just in those couple hours, we felt like we had gone through therapy for like 4 years together or like it just things that i didn't even realize that i wanted to tell her or be able to express. we're suddenly just like there and it was really cool. and, and i'm wondering, i mean, we didn't really get to the heart of this question, but who should be considering this therapy? robert?
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so there are a number of different people who can benefit and there are some folks who were not quite sure if there is an evidence base or that there shortly will be an evidence base for them to benefit. right now the most robust evidence is for folks who struck who suffer from treatment resistant, major depressive disorder and possibly major depressive disorder. and there is also quite a bit of evidence for patients who are specifically suffering from suicidal ideation in the context of treatment resistant, major depressive disorder. and i really want to emphasize that one of the reasons why, and by the way, i think of cat, i mean as the 1st of, of my, of much to con, really kind of a gate keeper to 2 things that are coming down the road and the reason there is so much interest in this medication and part is because we're in a public health crisis. if you look at the 1st 2 decades of this century, suicide rates globally, excuse me, in the united states have gone up in the past,
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approximate to decades by 35 percent. 035 percent. right. and we know that the world health organization has reiterated depression is the leading cause of is the leading cause of ah, let's call it disability morbidity in the world, global. so we're in a public health crisis and we have drugs that tend not to work very quickly and tend to be permutations of each other to have something new that's opening up a gateway for other drugs as well. and ask, hadn't even the psychedelic pipeline is exciting. and robert, when you talk about it being a cadillac or for humility, i had a personal experience taking another psychedelic, i'll just be transparent. i was in a legal environment. it was, i was, i was sca actually and it was very hard for me after that experience. i know they're very different, but it's these same difficulties in trying to find words to encapsulate this
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feeling of connecting to trauma as being able to process things feeling, you know, feeling very sort of humble about your own struggles if you will. i mean, that's a very general way of putting it, but i'm curious before we get into some of the risks and challenges. robert, why is this humility catalyze? are so important for 2 reasons. not a day goes by where my team and i, i think are not instilled with a sense of respect and humility for this are merging mechanism that, that can mean seems to leverage. and that is to say we're, we're often surprised about what's coming out and what's evolving as we better understand it. and it tells us just how much we don't know about this very exciting thing. i think from a subjective perspective on the a sense of humility, one might feel can be due to any number of things,
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but in some cases probably has something to do with what we heard a little bit earlier before about the combined effects of synaptic janice says in an environment where a patient is allowed to explore new cognitive or psychologic stances and starting point and see things with a new lamp. well i, i really appreciate you. i framing it that way because we have a video that we want to share where someone does just that, see people echoing what you say throughout this. so dr. before we get to that video, i just want to share with you. yeah. what, what people are saying in youtube, for example, big rad, saying, or sorry, past as saying my wife wants to try it for her migraines. nothing else has helped. and i'm hoping ketamine treatment will be a miracle. maybe nothing is a miracle a but there have also asking about the side effect, so we'll get to all that. but before we do this is dr. michael very bora, from toronto explaining sort of some of the rapid dis association that can happen.
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take a listen when people are under the influence of ketamine, they get this rapid association of your, you know, constant thoughts that they normally have. and over the period of an hour, they get a chance to kind of have an opportunity to say fresh, new perspectives on, you know, a lot of their personal beliefs or routines or whatever it may be. and for people suffering with mental illness that can be very therapeutic to have a fresh perspective on, on their life there. so many people suffering from depression or anxiety who want to try ketamine therapy or just psychedelic therapy. and they, and they want help, right? they don't want to go do this in their backyard or underground where they don't have a medical team in the therapy to help them. so had about fresh perspective that we have heard from that time and time again when talking about coming in therapy. i mean, you've said that the results you've seen have been astounding. and even people who
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were previously suicidal have felt like, you know, their entire traumas or depression has been lifted. could you just talk us through? what's astounding, you yeah, i like. i like to tell people that i did 15 years of training and in western medicine, and i didn't feel like i had any tools to actually heal people, which is it seems ridiculous and crazy, but the, the, the healing, the work that i'm seeing and that my team is seeing in the clinic and, and i think it's really important to note that we're doing ketamine assisted psychotherapy. it's not like if it's sent to your home, or if it's done as an infusion and not together a psychotherapy, it essentially works as a long acting anti depressant. well, we're doing is we're really doing therapy we do for our sessions. so this, you're seeing one of our patients who as a marine who had severe trauma, saw his best friend die in front of him when they switched places and he was leading the squad was able to go back and cry and miss and apologize and really
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feel the feelings of missing his best friend, he lost, but then he also underneath that was able to uncover all these other traumas and difficult feelings. and what we're working on now in therapy is his grief over his loss of his mother. and just like that, he never got degree for, he was in the military, he went home and then had to go back into the field to rock rock like 2 days later . so it's like all these things to get bottled up and you never feel them. and you think you're pushing away and you think you're fine, but actually you don't realize what you could, the life you could be living if you weren't squeezing all the memories back and not processing them. and i think it really, really amazing example as someone who came in to us and had treatment resistant, depression and treatment resistance, suicidal ideation for her whole life had been adopted and her 1st ketamine session . she actually had a memory of being taken away from her mom, son and build record and had this her 1st 3 years of life. or actually she didn't remember them, but she was remembering,
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being in the orphanage not really knowing who to turn to write and just cried and cried. and had no idea was even part of she'd been in therapy or her life had no idea that it was even part of something she should process. and then the suicidal ideation lifted. so i think it's all really important when in the last class we watched someone talk about dissociation, and we've heard that word and i think it's really important to know that it's technically categorized as a dissociative. but most people actually report that they, you know, they'll travel into different realms during their journey, but they actually end up feeling more connected with their body, which no one can really explain why that true. but it may be part of like you travel when you come back and well i have a body. well my body needs rest, you know? so it really isn't like, i think we need to, to really just think about that term and not just categorize it as just as one thing, but it actually does many things for people therapeutically, most certainly, and i see rubber nodding there. robert, i want to come to you, but before i do, i kinda want to share with the audience. of course, there's a,
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another aspect all of this. there's the startup culture aspect, if you will, a lot of online prescriptions. and there's concerns, as we said at the top, about safety, oversight and accountability. i mean, robert, if you look at my screen here, this is, i think one of the wellness center is that are popping up online, you know, discover the power if they could. deli therapy, here's another one, talking about how their program centered in science. and it helps you see transformative results yet another one here, encouraging you to unlock your ability to heal and, and, you know, i think this is great. it encourages people to ask questions to reach out, but what are the maybe concerns about the different ways in which this could be abused and the ease with which there is access? now? yes, it's a, it's an extremely important question. so for all the optimal, the cautious optimism and enthusiasm that, at that basic science clinical science and translational clinical research and
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research levels that there is many of us are quite concerned that there is, at an absence of adequate oversight. may i ask, had a mean in other molecules and medicines circulate? so my phone rings, you know, several times a month with a disaster story about a situation that evolved somewhere in the country or the world and a patient sufferers, catastrophic consequences or may possibly death as a result of either inappropriate procedures, lack of oversight, lack of monitoring inappropriate dosing or giving the medicine to someone who has contraindications and it's critical to realize that and translational pharmacotherapies, this field of translational science and clinical signs. it's very hard without a strong group of collaborators, nationally and internationally. you establish
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a precise standard of care. so one of our goals is to always say, what's the evidence base ask, what's the evidence base? show me the data. and then let's create together a reasonable statement of standard of care. that is reflective of the evidence and the data. and let's not be fooled or coerced into using it outside of those bounds because that's when dangerous. that's when the danger and on mountain match went. bad things happen. well, i appreciate that. i also want to share that there are other people in our youtube chat, jamie and in real time saying for example, line junior academy in a great solution for physical and mental issues, but really dangerous when it becomes an addiction. my co reagan. yes, saying ketamine is an interesting concept alongside various other psychedelic substances. all very good in theory, but in practice faces resistance from the medical establishment. i'm curious. i see you're, you're nodding robert and. 3 dr. hannah, you talked about sort of the disconnect between western medicine and how that
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inability you felt to actually treat people. but what do you make of this comment, this resistance that we see it's or a robert 1st and then we'll come to you dr. ana, but i'm curious specifically, you know, we saw this, you know, or again, i think in the u. s. context is now able legally to treat a silo psy, been, of course, which is magic mushrooms, but with all the psychedelic, we've seen this pushback. what can you share with us, robert, about that pushback, and is it good? i mean, is that gonna help us maybe control potential abuse? yes, the pushback is actually, it's not just important. it's critical. the pushback and my experience, it 1st doesn't follow in east west binary. i would suggest we really deconstruct using that language because it just doesn't follow along those lines anymore. fair enough that the pushback really, i think, is about ensuring that there is an evidence base for the protocols that are being used in the community to make sure that patients are safe. that's pushed back that
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you want to exist, right? we want data driven evidence based care, and that data driven evidence based care is it can occur and the research that's needed is happening. what we don't want to have happen is for the unregulated, broader community in which marketing sentence, yeah, are extraordinarily powerful, right? to dictate care plan on unforgotten money driving care. no, i appreciate you saying that i do wanna just take us to another topic because we have this woman who posted about her experience with ketamine therapy on tick tock for tastes. i'm going to come to you after this have a look at this. of course, she's using all those hashtags like ketamine therapy and mental health, but take a look at this. okay, let's talk about ivy ketamine therapy. this treatment is ideal for people with severe anxiety, depression, p, t s d, a dickson. i have treatment resistant anxiety and depression,
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which means that i've tried literally every single medication and not have worked. so my doctor recommended t m. s, and i think, i mean that benefits are supposed to be long term or permanent. so i'm really excited to see how they'll stick around long term. but i have noticed amazing changes since i've started these infusions. i highly recommend this treatment to anyone who has been struggling. it is a game changer and it literally saved my life. your reaction to them for teresa? yeah, i just wanted to comment really quickly on what you were saying about the companies that are sending it out and kind of making it easier to get. and i do think there is a conversation to be had about the accessibility of mental health treatment, especially in the united states. but as someone who did ketamine in a clinical setting. and i could not imagine doing it outside of a clinical setting and not having a doctor there and not having a technician, i think my blood pressure. i mean, seriously, like we talk,
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i wish i would say the doctors how heavily there. nodding right now, they're both like yes. well, i mean, sometimes i think, you know, maybe it's an cool me to say, but sometimes it like hits me really hard and i get very, very anxious. and i literally feel like i am not and a good place i need that professional there. and so, sorry, i just wanted to say really quickly that i think it's really important that the accessibility is wider than but i would never tell someone, even though i mean has done great things for my mental health. and i would say, if you can't do it in a clinical setting, it might not be the right time to do it. i don't agree with these companies and, and how they're doing. and i'm wondering about video, the video that we shared with you. i mean, it also addresses sort of breaking some of the stigma around not just mental health but, but this whole issue. i mean how important is that in dr. hannah, in terms of moving forward? i know, for example, and i don't want to just mix too many things here, but, but a lot of moving pieces here, for example, a proposal by biden in the new york times here that would been online prescribing
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of certain drugs. i would imagine including the academy and how important is it that we break the stigma, but also keep access available? yeah, i think it's more about like how do we keep safety and keep keep accessibility in mind, but not throw safety out the window. i don't think sending cutting me home to people is safe in most circumstances. once in a while we'll do it. 95 percent of our patients are all in office. we do like extended in person treatments, but i think it's really important for for ketamine. there's 4 categories, really i say they're saying there's home laws, hinges, there is in office i, v and fusions that are usually not with therapy, and then there's therapy. and then you can have like at home, you can have someone sitting with you so there can be alone. someone sitting with you and fusion and therapy. yeah. and i think it's really important that we're keeping the separate right. and i also think it's really important to keep in mind that i think the facilitators and well trained facilitators are really what's going
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to make or break this ecosystem. our, our programs actually want in 7 and a whole country. ok, that is, well that using that is license to train and oregon and i think we really just need to keep an eye on who is sitting with who and how safety is. and then we also need to keep an eye on people like you and other developments of this very fascinating topic, which we will do. i want to thank you. in the meantime, robert. and then for for being the they tuned the next time. ah ah. a,
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up the u. s. is always of interest to people. all right, the world people pay attention to work with on here. and i'll do this very good at bringing the news to the world from here. golly book, a glamorous industry that attracts though seeking fame and fortune. i always don't lie, so that sunday i will be famous. but for some following, their dreams can become a nightmare. i had asked in the 1st benefit of my mother, i had to confirm the psychologist for the longest bollywood dreams. on al jazeera lou ah,
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