Funding to study ketamine use for veterans cut in last-minute vetoes

Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn’t think his fellow vets should get lost in the K hole.

Among the vetoes rolled out with just hours to go before the next fiscal year begins at midnight: $300,000 for a study of the “longitudinal efficacy of Ketamine for the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder among Veterans and First Responders.”

The appropriations request was sponsored by Rep. Jon Albert, a Polk County Republican who carried the request on behalf of the Ketamine Task Force, which sought to conduct the study with state funds for 250 former military members, police officers, and firefighters.

If funded, a five-year “longitudinal study” examining “the effects of ketamine for the treatment of major depressive disorder among veterans and first responders in order to inform coverage, approval, and increase access” would have begun, at least conceptually. The first year would have gone to “study preparation, regulatory approvals, staff hiring, and software programming to evaluate outcomes and begin treatment cycles.”

Experimental psychologist Dr. Meredith Berry of the University of Florida would have helmed the initiative, and would have made upwards of $87,000 “for oversight of the full trial process, including hiring and training staff, obtaining IRB approval, development of materials and design, recruitment, enrollment, survey, and quantitative and qualitative data collection, data analysis, and supervising the team on trial process.”

Medical science is coming around to the onetime club drug’s clinical applications.

“A consensus statement published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (Sanacora et al., 2017), the preeminent medical journal of the U.S. highlights the need for longitudinal data for ketamine use for depression and mood disorders,” the appropriations request says.