By MATTHEW PERRONE

WASHINGTON (AP) — LSD reduced symptoms of anxiety in a midstage study published Thursday, paving the way for additional testing and possible medical approval of a psychedelic drug that has been banned in the U.S. for more than a half century.

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The results from drugmaker Mindmed tested several doses of LSD in patients with moderate-to-severe generalized anxiety disorder, with the benefits lasting as long as three months. The company plans to conduct follow-up studies to confirm the results and then apply for Food and Drug Administration approval.

Beginning in the 1950s, researchers published a flurry of papers exploring LSD’s therapeutic uses, though most of them don’t meet modern standards.

“I see this paper as a clear step in the direction of reviving that old research, applying our modern standards and determining what are the real costs and benefits of these compounds,” said Frederick Barrett, who directs Johns Hopkins University’s psychedelic center and was not involved in the research.

Psychedelic research is rebounding

Psychedelics are in the midst of a popular and scientific comeback, with conferences, documentaries, books and medical journals exploring their potential for conditions like depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The FDA has designated psilocybin, MDMA and now LSD as potential “breakthrough” therapies based on early results.

Still, the drugs have not had a glide path to the market.

Last year, the FDA rejected MDMA — also known as ecstasy — as a treatment for PTSD, citing flawed study methods, potential research bias and other issues.

The new LSD study, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, addresses some of those problems.

MDMA, like many other psychedelics, was tested in combination with hours of talk therapy by trained health professionals. That approach proved problematic for FDA reviewers, who said it was difficult to separate the benefits of the drug from those of therapy.

The LSD study took a simpler approach: Patients got a single dose of LSD — under professional supervision, but without therapy — and then were followed for about three months.

The paper does not detail how patients were prepared for the experience or what sort of follow-up they received, which is crucial to understanding the research, Barrett noted.

“In many cases people can have such powerful, subjective experiences that they may need to talk to a therapist to help them make sense of it,” he said.

Anxiety eased but questions remain

For the study, researchers measured anxiety symptoms in nearly 200 patients who randomly received one of four doses of LSD or a placebo. The main aim was to find the optimal dose of the drug, which can cause intense visual hallucinations and occasionally feelings of panic or paranoia.

At four weeks, patients receiving the two highest doses had significantly lower anxiety scores than those who received placebo or lower doses. After 12 weeks, 65% of patients taking the most effective LSD dose — 100 milligrams — continued to show benefits and nearly 50% were deemed to be in remission. The most common side effects included hallucinations, nausea and headaches.

Patients who got dummy pills also improved — a common phenomenon in psychedelic and psychiatric studies — but their changes were less than half the size those getting the real drug.

The research was not immune to problems seen in similar studies.

Most patients were able to correctly guess whether they’d received LSD or a dummy pill, undercutting the “blinded” approach that’s considered critical to objectively establishing the benefits of a new medicine. In addition, a significant portion of patients in both the placebo and treatment groups dropped out early, narrowing the final data set.

It also wasn’t clear how long patients might continue to benefit.

Mindmed is conducting two large, late-stage trials that will track patients over a longer period of time and, if successful, be submitted for FDA approval.

“It’s possible that some people may need retreatment,” said Dr. Maurizio Fava of Mass General Brigham Hospital, the study’s lead author and an adviser to Mindmed. “How many retreatments, we don’t know yet, but the long-lasting effect is quite significant.”

Interest from the Trump administration

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other administration officials have expressed interest in psychedelic therapy, suggesting it could receive fast-track review for veterans and others suffering psychological wounds.

Generalized anxiety disorder is among the most common mental disorders, affecting nearly 3% of U.S. adults, according to the National Institutes of Health. Current treatments include psychotherapy, antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs like benzodiazepines.

The possibility of using LSD as a medical treatment isn’t new.

In the 1950s and 1960s more than 1,000 papers were published documenting LSD’s use treating alcohol addiction, depression and other conditions. But a federal backlash was in full swing by the late 1960s, when psychedelics became linked to counterculture figures like Timothy Leary, the ex-Harvard professor who famously promoted the drugs as a means to “turn on, tune in and dropout.”

A 1970 law classifying LSD and other psychedelics as Schedule 1 drugs — without any medical use and high potential for abuse — essentially halted U.S. research.

When a handful of nonprofits begin reassessing the drugs in the 1980s and 1990s, they focused on lesser-known hallucinogens like MDMA and psilocybin, the main ingredient in magic mushrooms, to avoid the historic controversies surrounding LSD.

“LSD was right there in front of everybody, but Mindmed is the first company that actually decided to evaluate it,” Fava said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By LINLEY SANDERS and AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans say kids should be vaccinated to attend school. But as Florida plans to become the first state to eliminate childhood vaccine mandates, U.S. adults are also less likely to think these immunizations are important than they were several decades ago.

Routine childhood vaccine rates are falling, and fewer Americans – particularly Republicans – now say it’s extremely important for children to get vaccinated. Polling indicates that for the relatively small but influential group of Americans who oppose childhood vaccines, concerns about personal freedom and government influence are prominent.

Childhood vaccines prevent 4 million deaths worldwide each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And they don’t just protect individuals; they create “herd immunity” in a community. This is when enough people have immunity to stop the uncontrolled spread of a disease. It keeps everyone safe by preventing outbreaks that can sicken the vulnerable.

Here’s what recent surveys show about views on childhood vaccines, and how they’ve shifted.

Americans broadly support vaccine mandates

Florida’s move is a significant departure from decades of public policy and research that has shown vaccines to be safe and the most effective way to stop the spread of communicable diseases.

It also runs largely counter to mainstream public opinion about vaccine requirements, although some polling suggests that U.S. adults are less likely to embrace vaccine mandates than they were several decades ago.

About 8 in 10 U.S. adults in a Harvard/SSRS poll from March said parents should be required to have children vaccinated against preventable diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella to attend school, including majorities of Democrats and Republicans. And about 7 in 10 U.S. adults in a New York Times/Ipsos poll said healthy children should be required to be vaccinated because of the risk to others.

A 2024 Gallup poll found a narrower split, though, with about half of U.S. adults saying the government should require all parents to have their children vaccinated against contagious diseases such as measles, while just under half said the government should stay out.

That’s a dramatic shift from 1991, when another poll found that 81% of Americans said the government should require childhood vaccinations.

Republicans less likely to see vaccines as important

The drop in support for childhood vaccination requirements is driven mostly by Republicans. The 2024 Gallup poll found that most Republicans, 60%, oppose government vaccine mandates.

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At the same time, Republicans are also less likely to see vaccines as important. In the Gallup survey, only about one-quarter of Republicans said it was “extremely important” for parents to get their children vaccinated, compared to about 6 in 10 Democrats.

The two parties began to diverge on the issue before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the gap widened substantially after 2019, when Republicans became much more likely to dismiss the importance of childhood vaccinations.

Slightly more than half of Americans were “extremely” or “very” concerned that more people choosing to not vaccinate their children against childhood diseases would lead to more outbreaks of infectious diseases, according to an AP-NORC poll from January, but Democrats were more concerned than Republicans or independents.

Many have heard false claims about the risks of vaccines

As prominent figures like Kennedy refuse to acknowledge the scientific consensus that childhood vaccines don’t cause autism, an April KFF poll shows that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults have heard or read the false claim that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines, also known as the MMR vaccines, have been proven to cause autism in children.

About one-third have heard the false claim that getting the measles vaccine is more dangerous than becoming infected with measles, according to KFF.

Very few U.S. adults – around 5% – think each claim is “definitely true,” the poll found, but less than half say each is “definitely false,” with significant numbers expressing uncertainty.

Vaccine mandate opposition may be more about choice than safety

Another poll, though, suggests that concerns about parental rights may be playing a larger role than worries about safety.

The Harvard/SSRS poll from March found that among those who do not support routine childhood vaccine requirements, about 8 in 10 said a “major reason” for that opposition was that it should be the parents’ choice whether or not to vaccinate their child.

Many fewer vaccine opposers, 40%, said concerns about safety were a major reason.

By Darius Tahir, KFF Health News

John McGing couldn’t reach a human. That might be business-as-usual in this economy, but it wasn’t business; he had called the Social Security Administration, where the questions often aren’t generic and the callers tend to be older, disabled, or otherwise vulnerable Americans.

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McGing, calling on behalf of his son, had an in-the-weeds question: how to prevent overpayments that the federal government might later claw back. His call was intercepted by an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot.

No matter what he said, the bot parroted canned answers to generic questions, not McGing’s obscure query. “If you do a key press, it didn’t do anything,” he said. Eventually, the bot “glitched or whatever” and got him to an agent.

It was a small but revealing incident. Unbeknownst to McGing, a former Social Security employee in Maryland, he had encountered a technological tool recently introduced by the agency. Former officials and longtime observers of the agency say the Trump administration rolled out a product that was tested but deemed not yet ready during the Biden administration.

“With the new administration, they’re just kind of like, let’s go fast and fix it later, which I don’t agree with, because you are going to generate a lot of confusion,” said Marcela Escobar-Alava, who served as Social Security’s chief information officer under President Joe Biden.

Some 74 million people receive Social Security benefits; 11 million of those receive disability payments. In a survey conducted last fall , more than a third of recipients said they wouldn’t be able to afford such necessities as food, clothing, or housing without it. And yet the agency has been shedding the employees who serve them: Some 6,200 have left the agency, its commissioner told lawmakers in June, and critics in Congress and elsewhere say that’s led to worse customer service, despite the agency’s efforts to build up new technology.

Take the new phone bot. At least some beneficiaries don’t like it: Social Security’s Facebook page is, from time to time, pockmarked with negative reviews of the uncooperative bot, as the agency said in July that nearly 41% of calls are handled by the bot.

Lawmakers and former agency employees worry it foreshadows a less human Social Security, in which rushed-out AI takes the place of pushed-out, experienced employees.

Anxieties Across Party Lines

Concern over the direction of the agency is bipartisan. In May, a group of House Republicans wrote to the Social Security Administration expressing support for government efficiency, but cautioning that their constituents had criticized the agency for “inadequate customer service” and suggesting that some measures may be “overly burdensome.”

The agency’s commissioner, Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive, is a tech enthusiast. He has a laundry list of initiatives on which to spend the $600 million in new tech money in the Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget request. He’s gotten testy when asked whether his plans mean he’ll be replacing human staff with AI.

“You referred to SSA being on an all-time staffing low; it’s also at an all-time technological high,” he snapped at one Democrat in a House hearing in late June.

But former Social Security officials are more ambivalent. In interviews with KFF Health News, people who left the agency — some speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Trump administration and its supporters — said they believe the new administration simply rushed out technologies developed, but deemed not yet ready, by the Biden administration. They also said the agency’s firing of thousands of employees resulted in the loss of experienced technologists who are best equipped to roll out these initiatives and address their weaknesses.

“Social Security’s new AI phone tool is making it even harder for people to get help over the phone — and near impossible if someone needs an American Sign Language interpreter or translator,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told KFF Health News. “We should be making it as easy as possible for people to get the Social Security they’ve earned.”

Spokespeople for the agency did not reply to questions from KFF Health News.

Using AI to automate customer service is one of the buzziest businesses in Silicon Valley. In theory, the new breed of artificial intelligence technologies can smoothly respond, in a human-like voice, to just about any question. That’s not how the Social Security Administration’s bot seems to work, with users reporting canned, unrelated responses.

The Trump administration has eliminated some online statistics that obscure its true performance, said Kathleen Romig, a former agency official who is now director of Social Security and disability policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The old website showed that most callers waited two hours for an answer. Now, the website doesn’t show waiting times, either for phone inquiries (once callback wait time is accounted for) or appointment scheduling.

While statistics are being posted that show beneficiaries receive help — that is, using the AI bot or the agency’s website to accomplish tasks like getting a replacement card — Romig said she thinks it’s a “very distorted view” overall. Reviews of the AI bot are often poor, she said.

Agency leaders and employees who first worked on the AI product during the Biden administration anticipated those types of difficulties. Escobar-Alava said they had worked on such a bot, but wanted to clean up the policy and regulation data it was relying on first.

“We wanted to ensure the automation produced consistent and accurate answers, which was going to take more time,” she said. Instead, it seems the Trump administration opted to introduce the bot first and troubleshoot later, Escobar-Alava said.

Romig said one former executive told her that the agency had used canned FAQs without modifications or nuances to accommodate individual situations and was monitoring the technology to see how well it performed. Escobar-Alava said she has heard similarly.

Could Automation Help?

To Bisignano, automation and web services are the most efficient ways to assist the program’s beneficiaries. In a letter to Warren, he said that agency leaders “are transforming SSA into a digital-first agency that meets customers where they want to be met,” making changes that allow the vast majority of calls to be handled either in an automated fashion or by having a human return the customer’s call.

Using these methods also relieves burdens on otherwise beleaguered field offices, Bisignano wrote.

Altering the phone experience is not the end of Bisignano’s tech dreams. The agency asked Congress for some $600 million in additional funding for investments, which he intends to use for online scheduling, detecting fraud, and much more, according to a list submitted to the House in late June.

But outside experts and former employees said Bisignano overstated the novelty of the ideas he presented to Congress. The agency has been updating its technology for years, but that does not necessarily mean thousands of its workers are suddenly obsolete, Romig said. It’s not bad that the upgrades are continuing, she said, but progress has been more incremental than revolutionary.

Some changes focus on spiffing up the agency’s public face. Bisignano told House lawmakers that he oversaw a redesign of the agency’s performance-statistics page to emphasize the number of automated calls and deemphasize statistics about call wait times. He called the latter stats “discouraging” and suggested that displaying them online might dissuade beneficiaries from calling.

Warren said Bisignano has since told her privately that he would allow an “inspector general audit” of their customer-service quality data and pledged to make a list of performance information publicly available. The agency has since updated its performance statistics page.

Other changes would come at greater cost and effort. In April, the agency rolled out a security authentication program for direct deposit changes, requiring beneficiaries to verify their identity in person if what the agency described in regulatory documents as an “automated” analysis system detects anomalies.

According to documents accompanying the proposal, the agency estimated about 5.8 million beneficiaries would be affected — and that it would cost the federal government nearly $1.2 billion, mostly driven by staff time devoted to assisting claimants. The agency is asking for nearly $7.7 billion in the upcoming fiscal year for payroll overall.

Christopher Hensley, a financial adviser in Houston, said one of his clients called him in May after her bank changed its routing number and Social Security stopped paying her, forcing her to borrow money from her family.

It turned out that the agency had flagged her account for fraud. Hensley said she had to travel 30 minutes to the nearest Social Security office to verify her identity and correct the problem.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Associated Press

Lawmakers in Missouri are the latest to try to draw a new U.S. House map for the 2026 election that could improve the Republican Party’s numbers in Congress.

It’s a trend that began in Texas, at the behest of President Donald Trump, to try to keep GOP control of the House next year. California Democrats responded with their own map to help their party, though it still requires voter approval.

Redistricting typically occurs once a decade, immediately after a census. But in some states, there is no prohibition on a mid-cycle map makeover. The U.S. Supreme Court also has said there is no federal prohibition on political gerrymandering, in which districts are intentionally drawn to one party’s advantage.

Nationally, Democrats need to gain three seats next year to take control of the House. The party of the president typically loses seats in the midterm congressional elections.

A chart showing how partisan advantage has changed since 2016. (AP Digital Embed)
A U.S. map showing where parties won more U.S. House seats than expected based on their share of the vote. (AP Digital Embed)

Here is a rundown of what states are doing:

Missouri lawmakers hold a special session

A special session called by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe began Wednesday and will run at least a week.

Missouri is represented in the U.S House by six Republicans and two Democrats.

A revised map proposed by Kehoe would give Republicans a better chance at winning the seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by stretching the Kansas City-based district into rural Republican-leaning areas.

Although Democrats could filibuster in the Senate, Republicans could use procedural maneuvers to shut that down and pass the new map.

Texas Democrats walked out but Republicans prevailed

Democratic state House members left Texas for two weeks to scuttle a special session on redistricting by preventing a quorum needed to do business. But after that session ended, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott quickly called another one — and Democrats returned, satisfied that they had made their point and that California was proceeding with a counter plan.

Republicans hold 25 of the 38 congressional seats in Texas. A revised map passed Aug. 23 is intended to give Republicans a shot at picking up five additional seats in next year’s elections. Abbott’s signature made the map final.

California Democrats seek to counter Texas

Democrats already hold 43 of the 52 congressional seats in California. The Legislature passed a revised map passed Aug. 21 aimed at giving Democrats a chance to gain five additional seats in the 2026 elections.

Unlike Texas, California has an independent citizens’ commission that handles redistricting after the census, so any changes to the map need approval from voters. A referendum is scheduled for Nov. 4.

Indiana Republicans meet with Trump about redistricting

Indiana’s Republican legislative leaders met privately with Trump to discuss redistricting while in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 26. Some also met with Vice President JD Vance.

Several Indiana legislators came out in support of a mid-cycle map change following the meetings. But others have expressed hesitation. It remains unclear if Indiana lawmakers will hold a special session on redistricting.

Republicans hold a 7-2 edge over Democrats in Indiana’s congressional delegation.

Louisiana Republicans looking at times for a special session

Louisiana lawmakers are being told to keep their calendars open between Oct. 23 and Nov. 13. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Oct. 15 over a challenge to the state’s congressional map.

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Republican state Rep. Gerald “Beau” Beaullieu, who chairs a House committee that oversees redistricting, said the idea is to have lawmakers available to come back to work in case the Supreme Court issues a ruling quickly.

Republicans now hold four of Louisiana’s six congressional seats.

Ohio must redraw its maps before the 2026 midterms

Because of the way its current districts were enacted, the state constitution requires Republican-led Ohio to adopt new House maps before the 2026 elections. Ohio Democrats are bracing for Republicans to try to expand their 10-5 congressional majority.

Democrats don’t have much power to stop it. But “we will fight, we will organize, we will make noise at every step of the process,” Ohio Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Clyde said.

New York Democrats try to change state law

New York, similar to California, has an independent commission that redraws districts after every census.

State Democrats have introduced legislation to allow mid-decade redistricting, but the soonest new maps could be in place would be for the 2028 elections. That is because the proposal would require an amendment to the state constitution, a change that would have to pass the Legislature twice and be approved by voters.

Maryland Democrats planning a response to Texas

Democratic state Sen. Clarence Lam has announced he is filing redistricting legislation for consideration during the 2026 session. Democratic House Majority Leader David Moon also said he would sponsor legislation triggering redistricting in Maryland if any state conducted mid-decade redistricting. Democrats control seven of Maryland’s eight congressional seats.

Florida’s governor pledges support for redistricting

Florida Republican state House Speaker Daniel Perez said his chamber will take up redistricting through a special committee. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has reiterated his support for the state to join the redistricting fray, calling on the federal government to conduct a new census count and claiming that the Trump administration should “award” the state another congressional seat.

Twenty of Florida’s 28 U.S. House seats are occupied by Republicans.

Kansas Republicans haven’t ruled out redistricting

Republican state Senate President Ty Masterson didn’t rule out trying to redraw the state’s four congressional districts, one of which is held by the state’s sole Democratic representative. The Legislature’s GOP supermajority could do so early next year.

A court orders Utah to redraw its districts

Utah Republicans hold all four of the state’s U.S. House seats under a map the GOP-led Legislature approved after the 2020 census. But a judge ruled Aug. 25 that the map was unlawful because the Legislature had circumvented an independent redistricting commission that was established by voters to ensure districts don’t deliberately favor one party.

The judge gave lawmakers until Sept. 24 to adopt a map, which could increase Democrats’ chances of winning a seat.