A Republican congressman has introduced a bill to direct the head of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to notify lawmakers if the agency adds a psychedelic drug to its formulary of covered prescription medicines.
The legislation, filed by Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) last week, states that VA must report to Congress on the addition of any psychedelic medicines to its formulary within 180 days of their federal approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The report would need to include “the determination of the Secretary whether to include such drug in the formulary of the Department,” as well as “the justification of the Secretary for such determination,” the bill text says.
Currently, there are no psychedelic drugs that are federally approved to prescribe as medicine. But that could soon change, as FDA recently agreed to review a new drug application for MDMA-assisted therapy on an expedited basis.
FDA has previously designated both MDMA and psilocybin as breakthrough therapies for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treatment-resistant depression, respectively.
Last month, VA separately issued a request for applications to conduct in-depth research on the use of psychedelics to treat PTSD and depression.
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