NYC NOW - October 3, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

The Justice Department is calling for federal oversight of two long-term veteran care facilities run by the state of New Jersey. Plus, universities across New York City are bracing for more protests as the anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel nears. Also, WNYC’s Tiffany Hanssen talks with Dr. Rachel Yehuda, director of Mount Sinai's Center for Psychedelic Therapy Research, about the center’s recent expansion and services. And finally, fall is prime time for whale watching. WNYC's reports from a whale watching boat 10 miles off of Manhattan.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. The U.S. Justice Department is calling for federal oversight of two long-term veteran care facilities run by the state of New Jersey. The department says Veterans Memorial Homes at Menlo Park and Paramas provided inadequate infection care during the pandemic. The complaint also says management and accountability problems persist at the facilities. The Justice Department says the number of deaths in the two homes was among the highest of all long-term care facilities in the state during the pandemic. The recommendation still needs to be approved by a court. The state's Department of Military and Veterans Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for common.

New York City universities are bracing for more protests as the anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel gets closer. WMYC's Jessica Gould reports university leaders are trying to improve the, dialogue among students ahead of the demonstrations. NYU, Columbia University, and CUNY are holding a series of events all semester meant to foster respectful conversations on campus. Some amount to pop up listening sessions. Others are more emotional. NYU's president was tearful at a recent event featuring the relatives of Israelis and Palestinians

who died in the decades-long conflict. Universities have also implemented new restrictions on campus protests. Now the discourse on campus faces a big test. The Mount Sinai Network in New York City is expanding its psychedelic treatment research center. More on that after the break. Psychedelic drugs are often known as party drugs, but recently, researchers have been looking into how psychedelics could be useful as medical treatments for heart-to-treat conditions. The Mount Sinai Network in New York City recently

expanded its Psychedelic Treatment Research Center, which studies unconventional treatment methods like ecstasy or psilocybin for PTSD. WMYC's Tiffany Hansen talked with the director of the center, Dr. Rachel Yehuda. So let's first start off by talking about the benefits of psychedelic assisted therapy. Well, I think the major benefit is that you can have a really profound process in a relatively short period of time. The other benefit is that you can go very deep. into exploring material that has usually been very difficult for you to access. Perhaps you don't even know what your traumas are. That's true of more people than you can imagine that they embark on a psychedelic-assisted therapy,

maybe for depression, and they uncover things about their lives that have been deeply buried and disturbing and uncomfortable for them. And in traditional forms of psychotherapy, it can take a long time before you feel better, What are the potential downsides? Of course, the biggest downside is that this treatment won't work for you. So this is true of every treatment that we have in mental health. Some people are what we call non-responders. The treatment is just not for them.

They're not engaging with it or it's the wrong approach for them. There might also be negative downsides in terms of the intensity of the approach for some people. It might be too much. And I think this is a real fear that. people have, that's somehow against their will. They're going to be shown some movie of themselves that they just don't want to witness. That fear can be allayed with proper preparation for the therapy. Nobody should ever be given a psychedelic without really reviewing what are the kinds of things that can happen and without the chance to really talk about it. The center initially

focused on MDMA, which some people may know as Ecstasy or Molly, for people who aren't too familiar with the drug, can you explain what exactly it is and how it compares to the quote-unquote more traditionally used medications for treating people with PTSD? MDMA isn't a classic psychedelic drug. It's a drug that activates some of the same neurotransmitters in the brain as psilocybin. or LSD. But the idea is that this is a drug that really causes a release or a rush of neurochemicals in your brain like serotonin, like dopamine, like norpenephrine. And it also releases hormones like oxytocin and cortisol. And these hormones flood your system and make

you feel the effects that have given it its name, ecstasy. But they also promote a state of awareness and curiosity, introspection, and trust. The FDA rejected MDMA therapy for PTSD. It was a big blow, no doubt, for the growing movement to use psychedelics as medicine. I'm just wondering what that means for the research center at Mount Sinai. Well, it means that it's more important than ever to do this kind of research because clearly the FDA was not yet convinced about the safety and efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapies. You have the ability now to expand your research. Mount Sinai received a $5 million gift from the Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation

to help the center expand the clinical trials, focusing on things like MDMA and ketamine. There is a new space that will house a group therapy room teaching. So talk to us a little bit about this expansion. Over the last two or three years, we have been operating with a couple of trees. treatment rooms. And so we've been able to conduct some trials, but it's gone pretty slowly because the therapy itself can be up to eight hours long. But in this new space, we now have

six individual treatment rooms, one big enough to do couples work. I think a lot of people got their introduction to Ecstasy or Molly in its context as a party drug. Back in the 80s, federal officials said the abuse of it had become a nationwide problem. Of course, that's decades ago. But I'm wondering if the stereotype and misconceptions are somehow affecting your ability to do the research you'd like to do. So the approach that we're studying isn't just to give a drug. It's to combine giving a drug in the context of a psychotherapeutic process, which will help somebody really deal with the material that arises when they're curious about what's in their inner world. And so really, it's quite a different thing. And I think that the more we link the two uses, the more difficult

it's going to be to really allay people's concerns that this is a type of therapy. That's Dr. Rachel Yehuda, Director of Mount Sinai's Center for Psychedelic Therapy Research, talking with WMYC's Tiffany Hansen. Fall is prime time for whale watching in the waters off the coast of New York City, and it's never been better. WMYC's Rosemary Misdairy reports from a whale watching boat 10 miles off of Manhattan. Good afternoon, folks, and welcome aboard the American Princess. This far out in the Atlantic Ocean, the Manhattan skyline is barely visible in the distance. The only sound is the water splashing against the hull of the boat.

It's packed with about 100 passengers scanning the water. with hushed anticipation. We are looking for a spout blow that looks like a bushy spray or a bushy plume rising above the circus. A geyser of pungent, fishy-smelling whale breath breaks the silence. Oh, there's the whale, 12 o'clock.

12 o'clock. That's the first sighting of a humpback whale on the tour. By the end of the three-hour trip, we spotted three more humpbacks, hundreds of bottlenose dolphins, and a lone harbor seal bobbing its head on the surface of the water. When they come jumping and flying right out of the water, it just does not get old. It's a fun, beautiful thing. That ship captain Frank DeSantis, he all but guarantees seeing a whale around this time of year. He puts the odds at 97% and data backs him up.

Citizen scientists at the nonprofit Gotham whale observed only five whales back in 2011. Now, they tally about 50 to 70 new whales each year. Many of the creatures are repeat visitors to the oceanic region, stretching from New Jersey to Montauk, known as the New York Bight. We see more and more aquatic life over the course of the last few years or the last decade, and we've been offering whale on dolphin watching tours since 2010, and we have seen each year We've had a few more sightings each year. Experts distinguish the whales by unique markings on their flukes, similar to a human fingerprint.

Celia Ackerman is a research associate at Gotham Whale. She explains to passengers that the whales are a sign of an improving ecosystem. These returning whales are also very important because they're showing us that they're remembering our runners here in the western New York bite as a place where, they can come and reliably find food again. So we love adding new whales, but we love seeing returning whales. It's like seeing an org friend again.

The ocean giants are here for their favorite food, Manhaden, a silvery one-pound filter fish. Whales eat them by the thousands. We're becoming a new feeding ground because of the recurring presence of the Atlantic Manhaden year over the past 10 years, which, in part is due to the improvement of water quality since the Clean Water Act of 1972. For urban nature lovers, whales are the Herald Angels of the Revitalized Ocean.

This is Irene Melchior's eighth whale trip, but her first from her hometown of New York City. That means the environment is better. Environment is cleaner and it's better for everyone. for the mammals that live in the sea and the animals that live on land and the birds that fly in the sky. This is Liz Lerner's fifth watch. The magnificence of the size, the mystery of them, beauty. They're kind of effort. In the fall, New York is an ocean crossroads bustling with life.

Hubbacks are gorging on fish as they prepare to make their annual. migration south to the Caribbean to mate. There's other whales in the area too. One of the most anticipated sightings is the largest animal on earth, the blue whale. Even they come to dine in New York City. That's WMYC's Rosemary Mystery. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jean-A-Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.