Longform Features & investigations

A Psychedelic therapist allegedly took millions from a holocaust survivor, highlighting worries about elder abuse

Illustration: Mike Reddy for STAT

This investigation exposes a psychedelic therapist and MAPS board member who allegedly took millions from an elderly holocaust survivor she was claiming to help. Psychedelics are being researched as a tool for elder case. “It’s a whole new frightening possibility of elder abuse,” said one geriatric psychiatrist.

Psychedelic therapy has a sexual abuse problem 

I exposed a therapist who sexually abused a PTSD patient during a clinical trial on MDMA. The therapist was unlicensed at the time. Despite this incident and the history of sexual abuse in psychedelic therapy, the organization behind the trial is pushing the FDA to let psychedelic therapists practice without a license.

‘variant hunters’ in pfizer’s labs race to stay ahead of the pandemic’s next twist

Photo: Desiree Rios for STAT

I was granted a rare look inside Pfizer’s labs as they scrambled to track and respond to the coronavirus pandemic. I met with “variant hunters,” a “graphing unicorn,” and the “virus farmer,” a high-level scientist who disagreed with his company’s decision that boosters should be distributed, while millions were still waiting for their first dose worldwide.

‘It’s not medical’: oregon wrestles with how to offer psychedelics outside the health care system

Photo: Ayşe Gürsöz for STAT

“We’re saying both things. This is not medical… But this is psilocybin-assisted therapy.” I explored how Oregon is figuring out how to create safe therapeutic psychedelics outside the medical system.

VACCINES INTENDED FOR RURAL BLACK COMMUNITIES ARE GOING TO WEALTHY WHITE FLORIDIANS

Photo: Bethany Mollenkof for STAT

The winds blew southwest the day of Pahokee’s Covid-19 vaccination drive, which meant the sugarcane fields were ablaze. Growers are banned from burning excess leaves when there’s an eastward breeze, which risks blowing the fumes towards the billionaire’s club of Mar-a-Lago. Pahokee is in the same county but its residents live in a different world. This feature highlights the massive inequity in Palm Beach county, played out through the struggle to access vaccines.

inside the Global race to Defeat Covid-19

I spoke with major research institutions in Germany, Nigeria, Israel and the UK, to uncover how scientists redeployed their efforts to focus on coronavirus. Some researchers were trying to fight several local pandemics simultaneously, while others created a major Covid-19 vaccine. Around the world and in very different circumstances, all figured out how to use their tools to address Covid.

A millionaire couple is threatening to create a magic mushroom monopoly

This investigation exposed a company attempting to control the market for medicinal magic mushrooms. It revealed illegal misuse of a non-profit structure, efforts to censor scientific research & control the legal supply of magic mushrooms, and potentially unsafe training for psychedelic therapists.

When a hospital closed mid-pandemic, A rural black community lost a lifeline

Photo: Bethany Mollenkof for STAT

Latasha Taylor’s mom was the third member of her family to die from Covid. “If you had to, you would do what I did,” she said. “Bury your whole family.” A record 19 hospitals closed in 2020, and predominantly affected rural Black populations. This feature explores how a community in Georgia struggled to survive after the local hospital closed, with 1 in every 200 people dying from Covid.

a cancer center KEPT AN EXPERIMENTAL CHILDREN’S TREATMENT EXCLUSIVE TO ATTRACT PATIENTS

Illustration: Mike Reddy for STAT

This investigation shows how a drug for a rare and deadly form of children’s cancer was kept at one hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering, for close to a decade. The hospital refused to do advanced studies, which would require sharing the drug with other sites, but still promoted it to patients as superior to the standard treatment used elsewhere.