MAPS/Lykos and FDA's Rejection: Rachel Nuwer Explains NYT Controversy

As an award-winning journalist and author of “I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World,” Rachel Nuwer has spent years covering MDMA’s role in the psychedelic renaissance happening around us. Notably, she covered the aftermath of the FDA’s 2024 rejection of Lykos Therapeutic’s MDMA-assisted PTSD therapy and the role an advocacy group—Psymposia—may have played in the FDA’s final decision. We discuss the blowback she received around her New York Times piece specifically from Psymposia and why says she’s ready to move on from reporting on MDMA.

⏱ CHAPTERS

00:00 – Welcome to Tripping Over Love + who is Rachel Nuwer
00:43 – Why Rachel wrote I Feel Love and how the MDMA story changed
01:20 – MDMA hype, MAPS trials, and FDA pushback
03:00 – After the psychedelic gold rush
05:33 – The pandemic rave that sparked the book (and the title “I Feel Love”)
05:54 – “Shallow user” MDMA at raves vs deep dives
09:31 – From “just say no” kid to “MDMA person”: stigma, fear, and opening up
10:33 – Religion, depression, and how Keith opened up to MDMA
12:05 – Coming out about MDMA use to Mom in Mississippi
13:19 – Media coverage, moral panic, and shifting public attitudes on psychedelics
21:29 – Inside the New York Times investigation of the MAPS Phase 3 “dumpster fire”
23:32 – Psymposia's legal threats, backlash, and when to stop fueling the fire
27:53 – Journalist vs advocate: walking the line in psychedelic therapy coverage
31:11 – Are psychedelics hijacking our hunger for meaning—or just revealing it?
33:25 – What’s actually killing journalism
36:48 – From Amazon explorer dreams to wildlife trafficking to the MDMA beat
38:12 – Where to find Rachel + outro

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