RFK Jr. Says HHS Wants To Roll Out Psychedelic Treatment For Veterans With PTSD Within A Year

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At a House Energy Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) questioned Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the use of psychedelics in mental health care.

Transcript

00:00Senator Crenshaw for five minutes of questioning.

00:02Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here.

00:05I saw you were in my district recently for an Iron Man in the Woodlands.

00:09You might be asked for a lot of commitments today.

00:11Maybe one I'll ask of you is to get a good workout in with me at one point.

00:17I have a couple issues I care about, a few actually.

00:20Direct primary care being one of them, so I'd like to start with that.

00:23I think we need direct primary care for a lot of reasons,

00:26and I've expressed those reasons on this committee many times.

00:30It's an affordable flat fee for full access to your primary care physician of your choice,

00:35and I believe it's the future model for primary care.

00:38But for some reason, it's barely touched Medicaid, and that's a problem I've tried to fix.

00:44We have a bipartisan bill that has done that, the Medicaid Primary Care Improvement Act.

00:49It would make it clear in federal law that states could reimburse direct primary care providers directly.

00:54It passed the House last year, but never made it through the Senate, as many good things do not.

01:00I just would like to ask you, will you work with us and with CMS to issue guidance

01:05or maybe launch a pilot program allowing state Medicaid programs to integrate direct primary care models

01:10into their benefit design?

01:12Yes, and in fact, Congressman Crenshaw, it was in the, it was a direct primary care revision

01:22in the big, beautiful bill that was under the HSA provision.

01:26I believe that provision was approved by Congress.

01:30It passed out of this House.

01:31Yes, and then once moved by the Senate, we're hoping to get it back in at some point.

01:37With your support, maybe they'll keep it in.

01:39That's great to hear, and I appreciate your support on that issue.

01:43I want to talk about regenerative medicine also.

01:47It's a transformational medicine and therapy.

01:50I think you'd agree with this.

01:51These aren't hypothetical solutions.

01:53You know, they're using the patient's own cells to, they're autologous cell therapies.

01:59They're using the patient's own cells to do some pretty amazing therapies and outcomes for people.

02:07As Secretary, what steps might HHS take to modernize that regulatory architecture for regenerative medicine,

02:15particularly for cell and tissue therapies that don't, they don't neatly fall into existing biologic classifications?

02:22And I introduced legislation, which passed the House yesterday, actually,

02:24that gives the FDA the opportunity to use the best science to update that policy.

02:29Would you work with us on getting that done?

02:31Yeah, absolutely.

02:33And I had another roundtable on cell and gene therapy up in,

02:38and at FDA headquarters with all of the leaders in that industry.

02:43It's something Marty McCary is deeply interested in.

02:47Jay Bhattacharya is.

02:48You know, we want to keep the United States, the hub, the scientific hub for development of cell and gene therapy.

02:57It is the medicine of the future, and we're absolutely committed to it.

03:03I appreciate that.

03:05Another interest of mine, I think we've had some legislative success as well in these past couple of years,

03:10those on the use of psychedelics for assisted therapy for conditions like PTSD, depression, addiction.

03:18What steps do you plan on taking to accelerate that domestic research, clinical trial access,

03:23and the safe deployment of these kind of therapies for trauma-related disorders?

03:28We are launching clinical trials now on that at FDA.

03:34I think there are 11 clinical trials at the VA going on at this point, particularly for our service members,

03:43retired service members.

03:45It's critically important that we make sure that the science on this is solid,

03:51and, you know, the preliminary results are very, very encouraging,

03:55and it's something that we want to pursue.

03:58Marty McCary has told me that we don't want to wait two years to get this done.

04:04These are people who badly need some kind of therapy.

04:08Nothing else is working for them.

04:10This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting,

04:15and we are working very hard to make sure that that happens within 12 months.

04:21That's great to hear.

04:23Just to put on your notes as well, you know, the FDA did draft,

04:28issued draft guidance on the clinical guidelines for these therapies two years ago.

04:33So finalizing that, I think, would be helpful for the industry.

04:37So they have been forward-leaning, but I think finalizing that would be helpful for the industry.

04:42I'm running out of time, but maybe for the record, you could help us with this.

04:45In my bill, in Section 723 of the FY24 NDAA, that's where we got the money and the mandate for the DOD to do these clinical trials.

04:58And part of their own guidance was to work with NIH,

05:03and I'd like to figure out how that relationship is looking and what NIH is doing along with the Department of Defense.

05:09We brought on personnel to liaise on directly with VA.

05:15I talk with Doug Collins about it all the time.

05:17It's something that both of us are deeply interested in.

05:21All right.

05:21The gentleman's time is expired.

05:22I would now represent to rather recognize.

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