Magic mushrooms and cluster headaches | Philly Health Insider
Plus, Jefferson is postponing raises
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Good morning. Today, we take you into the excruciating pain of cluster headache patients — and their efforts to find relief through psychedelic mushrooms. Plus:
Delco state of mind: Mental health services are shrinking in one of Philly’s collar counties
It’s Obamacare season: ACA enrollment is open, and more people are signing up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
Jefferson postpones raises: Workers at Philly’s largest health system won’t get their annual raises until next summer
📮 Do you have patients who have used psychedelics to treat ailments? For a chance to be featured in this newsletter, email us back.
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— Aubrey Whelan and Alison McCook, Inquirer health reporters, @aubreyjwhelan and @alisonmccook.
Psychedelic drugs are having a bit of a moment in Philly: Over the last few years, our city has been home to researchers studying the ethics of their use in medicine, therapists who supervise trips as treatment for mental illness, and academic conferences that go deep on potential applications of these drugs.
Lately, Philly-based scientists have been impressed by a group of patients advocating for the use of psychedelics to treat a seemingly intractable health issue: cluster headaches.
Take Joe McKay, a North Jersey resident whose cluster headaches began shortly after he served as a New York City firefighter and first responder on 9/11. His headaches felt like someone was stabbing him in the eye with an ice pick — and few treatments worked.
One thing that did? Low doses of psychedelic mushrooms. McKay and others in his community — known as “cluster busters” — are pushing for more rigorous research into how and why psilocybin has proven effective for some patients.
Strict federal regulations on psilocybin make that work difficult, but the cluster-buster community’s advocacy has helped some studies move forward. Read Alison’s story for more on how magic mushrooms can treat cluster headaches, and what’s ahead on the research horizon.
The latest news to pay attention to
The financial picture is looking up for nearly every health system in Southeastern Pennsylvania. All but two have reported better operating results in fiscal 2024 than in 2023. But around half of the systems that our health team tracks still lost money in 2024. Read Harold Brubaker’s story to see how your hospital made out.
Behavioral health treatment is becoming harder to access in Delaware County. Last month, Mercy Fitzgerald closed down its 21-bed behavioral unit. The move comes as the state seeks a takeover of financially beleaguered Crozer Health, home to one of the county’s largest mental health providers. Read Sarah Gantz’s story for more on the state of mental health care in Delco.
Jefferson is postponing annual raises for more than 42,000 workers between January and July. Hospital officers say they want to sync up salary increases with the fiscal year to improve their financial planning processes.
Today’s big number: 434,571.
That’s the number of Pennsylvanians who got health-care plans in 2024 through Pennie, the state’s marketplace for Obamacare insurance plans. Nationwide, enrollment through the Affordable Care Act has been steadily rising since 2020.
Pennsylvania’s enrollment increased 17% last year, posting the third-highest numbers seen since 2015, according to data from KFF. That’s also the highest number of people who have ever used Pennie to sign up for care. (Before the state-run Obamacare exchange was launched in 2020, people in Pennsylvania signed up for ACA plans using the federally run healthcare.gov.)
Nearly 399,000 people signed up for plans using Get Covered New Jersey, the Jersey equivalent of Pennie, for 2024 — a 16% increase over 2023.
Open enrollment for Obamacare plans started Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 19 in Pennsylvania and Jan. 31 in Jersey. (That’s just around the time President-Elect Donald Trump, who spent many years trying to dismantle his predecessor’s flagship legislative achievement, is set to be sworn in.)
Each week, we highlight the results of safety inspections at area hospitals. This week, we look at Montgomery County’s Pottstown Hospital, part of Tower Health.
On a visit in July, inspectors cited the hospital for restraining a patient’s arms and legs without a doctor’s order. Read more about the investigation here.
What will it mean for Philadelphia if a new Trump administration recommends removing fluoride from our drinking water? “If you take fluoride out of the water system, it won’t be a problem for dentists. It will be a problem for patients and society,” Mark Wolff, the dean of Penn’s dental school, told The Inquirer last week.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the longtime environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine advocate now serving on the Trump transition team, said he wants it removed from water systems, tweeting that fluoride causes “IQ loss.” (Many scientists say this is fearmongering: recent research on the topic has drawn criticism from other researchers and the American Dental Association.)
Wolff says removing fluoride from drinking water could lead to worse health for patients: Research shows it’s effective in preventing tooth decay, the No. 1 chronic illness in kids. Read his interview with The Inquirer to learn more about how fluoridation works in Philadelphia-area water systems.
Making moves
Gift of Life, a nonprofit that procures donated organs for transplant operations at hospitals in the Philadelphia region, has appointed transplant surgeon Marty Sellers as its new medical director.
A national expert on preserving organs so they reach the patients who need them, Sellers will oversee the team of surgeons at Gift of Life who recover organs from donors. Sellers also has Philly connections: He served as an associate professor at Penn and as the surgical director of renal transplantation at CHOP.
Philadelphia has hired staff and retrofitted a van for a mobile methadone clinic — part of an effort to help more people access this heavily regulated addiction treatment.
Methadone vans were banned in the United States between 2007 and 2021, so while Philly has operated several clinics-on-wheels to address other aspects of the opioid crisis in recent years, the mobile methadone program is a new step for the city. It’s funded with money from opioid lawsuit settlements.
Read Aubrey’s story to learn more on the city’s van plan — and how these programs work close to home (Woonsocket, Rhode Island) and far away (Lisbon, Portugal).
📮 Does your health system run any mobile medical clinics? For a chance to be featured in this newsletter, email us back.
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