featured image
Health

Psychedelic Outlaws: Cluster Headaches, Citizen Science, and the Story of ClusterBusters

September 10, 2024
Featuring: Joanna Kempner, Ph.D.

Cluster headaches are considered to be the most severe pain a person can experience. With scarce research and no funding, citizen-led science has taken over, and sufferers may have discovered the answer: psychedelics.

featured image
Subscribe Share

Cluster headaches are considered to be the most severe pain a person can experience. With scarce research and no funding, citizen-led science has taken over, and sufferers may have discovered the answer: psychedelics.

In this episode, Joe interviews Joanna Kempner, Ph.D.: associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University and author of the recently released, Psychedelic Outlaws: The Movement Revolutionizing Modern Medicine.

The book profiles the history and groundbreaking work of ClusterBusters, a nonprofit researching and spreading awareness about what someone named Flash discovered decades ago: that for some people, psilocybin and LSD could stop cluster headaches from coming on. Through early internet message board posts and email exchanges between Bob Wold, Rick Doblin, and others, Kempner pieced together their story. And through attending ClusterBusters meetings, she discovered that a lot of the true healing lies in the bonds formed and the hope people find when seeing something new work for a pain for which science has no answer.

She discusses:

  • The lack of political will behind something so debilitating: Why is there no funding for this?
  • The importance of patient advocacy and the role of the internet in sharing novel information
  • The difficulty in studying a disease so unpredictable: How do you run a randomized trial when you don’t know when a cluster is going to happen?
  • Why the headache community clashes with psychology
  • Concerns over how to ethically combine underground and Indigenous knowledge with above-ground University research

and more! 

Links

Joannakempner.com

Psychedelic Outlaws: The Movement Revolutionizing Modern Medicine, by Joanna Kempner, PhD

Clusterbusters.org

Psychedelicsandpain.org

Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health, by Johanna Kempner

Nih.gov: Response of cluster headache to psilocybin and LSD

Allianceforheadacheadvocacy.org: Headache on the Hill

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan

Portasophia.org

PT336 – Sisi Li, Ph.D. – Porta Sophia: Psychedelic Prior Art

ClusterBusters Inc. YouTube: Psychedelic Outlaws Book Club – Week 1

Philadelic.org

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

Joanna Kempner, Ph.D.

In this Episode

Joanna Kempner, Ph.D.

Joanna Kempner, associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University, is an award-winning sociologist of science, medicine, technology, and inequality, and the author of Psychedelic Outlaws: The Movement Revolutionizing Modern Medicine (Hachette, 2024) and Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health (Chicago, 2014). Kempner’s research is published in top journals across multiple disciplines, including Science, PLoS Medicine, and Social Science & Medicine, and is frequently covered in media outlets, like the Washington Post, the New York Times, PBS Newshour, and the BBC. Dr. Kempner received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and has held post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan and Princeton University.

Socials: X / Instagram / Facebook / Linkedin

Load more podcasts