SCI AM - Psychedelics and Immortality Take Center Stage at MAHA Summit

[Xipe Totec]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/maha-summit-features-talk-of-psychedelics-and-immortality/

November 24, 2025

Psychedelics and Immortality Take Center Stage at MAHA Summit

Social-media influencers and anti-ageing entrepreneurs mingled with top US government officials, including the head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), at an exclusive event steps from the White House this month. The meeting’s purpose was to discuss the future of health in the United States.

Organizers called it the MAHA Summit, referring to US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s signature ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement. Attendees included Kennedy, US vice-president JD Vance, NIH director Jayanta Bhattacharya, US Food and Drug Administration chief Marty Makary and the food activist Vani Hari, who blogs under the name Food Babe. Sessions at the summit, which Nature attended, covered a wide range of health-related topics, including psychedelics, brain implants and anti-ageing therapies. Academic researchers and clinicians were not among the speakers at the sessions, which were peppered by comments critical of the medical establishment.

Because science.