Selected Media
Guardian Book of the Day
“compelling…”
“The US sociologist’s study of psychoactive fungi to treat little-known medical conditions such as cluster headaches is well researched and wide-ranging.” The Observer
Q&A with
Women’s Health
“The stuff of film scripts”
- Claudia Canavan
Migraine.com review
“It’s clear she’s a college professor. But the cool one you want to share a beer with after class.”
(I’ll take it.)
The Trip Report
“To me, the definition of who is a criminal versus who is an outlaw…these are all constructs that we have applied artificially and through these prisms of who we think are experts, who we think are just lay people, and through this prism of race and credibility…And so that to me is like really the crux of the story. These patients know so much more about cluster headaches than their doctors. They're saving each other's lives. And they walk into that hospital and their future in a lot of ways depends on what these people decide and what they do. And that to me is so fascinating and problematic. And it says so much, I think, about the current state of psychedelic legislation and policy. And there, I think, is where all the ethics are.”
“This is really a grassroots movement to get treatment to people and a lot of what they do is make space for caring about people.”
The Pulse, NPR (full episode)
“Clusterbusters reminds me a bit of the Dallas Buyers Club…”
Jules Evans’ full review review here.
“Those tiny little pills that the doctor prescribes have so many stories to tell about power, inequality, and deceit.”
Excerpt, The Microdose
Proud to be one of the Next Big Idea books for June 2024. Click here to read the Book Bite.
“a must-read for enthusiasts of clinical research, grassroots activism, and spy thrillers alike!”
Psychedelics Today Live Book Event with Joe Moore, Joanna Kempner, Ph.D., James Fadiman, and Bob Wold. Click here to watch the whole thing.
With the title Psychedelic Outlaws,
the new book by sociologist Joanna Kempner might sound on the surface like a paean to the brash LSD adventurers of the 1960s like Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary.
In fact, the ‘outlaws’ Kempner shines a light on are a group of adults she describes as “regular people” with little or no interest in getting high on drugs.
Interview with Points
“My curiosity drives me to follow ideas wherever they lead. Since every idea has a history, I usually end up in an archive.”
Psychedelics Could Treat Some of the Worst Chronic Pain in the World
By Oshan Jarow
“Clusterbusters’ patient network might have saved their lives, but they wanted to be able to ask their doctors for advice. Regulation would help make it easier and safer for them to obtain a standard-sized dose of their treatment. And, most importantly, they hoped that good scientific research would help others find relief, too.”
The
Psychedelic Evangelist
By Brendan Borrell
“These are serious allegations that need to be investigated,” said Joanna Kempner, a medical sociologist at Rutgers University who reviewed the complaint for The New York Times. The clashes at Hopkins, she added, mirror a broader debate in the field over “blurring the lines between empirical research and spiritual practice.”
“There Has Never Been a Better Time to Have a Headache”
By Tom Zeller
As Joanna Kempner, an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University, nimbly laid out in her 2014 book “Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health,” migraine headaches in particular have been given inadequate consideration by the medical and scientific establishments. . . And while those diagnoses have now mostly been discarded by the medical establishment, she suggests that gender biases in headache treatment have not.”
“Is “Experimental” Just Another Way For Your Insurer to Deny Coverage? Medical Experts Wonder, Too.”
By Deb Gordon
Wold, a Medicare enrollee, pays as much as $2,400 out of pocket for oxygen during a cycle of headaches, which typically lasts for three months. Kempner thinks Medicare should pay.
“A new treatment may halt cluster headaches. But some say psychedelic drugs are the real answer.”
By Katherine Ellison
Clusterbusters’ out-of-the-box efforts on behalf of its pain-wracked members are “the stuff of movies,” said Rutgers University sociologist Joanna Kempner, who is writing a book on the group.
We Should Talk about That with the two Jess(es)
Understanding Migraine Stigma with Joanna Kempner and Eileen Brewer, Feb 15, 2021.
The Rooster, July 15, 2019.
Janet Steen, Longreads, February, 2019.
Sex(ism), Drugs, and Migraines
In this Distillations podcast from the Science History Institute, reporter Anne Hoffman traces the history of migraine, hoping to discover clues about a treatment that actually works for her. Joanna Kempner helps her understand the migraine stigma, and the resurgent interest in psychedelic treatment for migraine and cluster headache.
Do you have a migraine personality?
Natural Md Radio with Aviva RommTreating Migraines: How Women are Harmed by Gendered Medical Language
Catapult, February 6, 2018.
The Current, Candian Broadcasting Company. June 17, 2017
Philadelphia Inquirer, November 18, 2016
The Guardian, November 17, 2016
Independent, September 15, 2016
How did a painful and disabling disorder come to be seen as a symptom of femininity? Laurie Taylor talks to Joanna Kempner on Thinking Allowed, BBC Radio 4, January 28, 2015
