Grape growers and wine producers have long sought certifications testifying to their sustainable farming methods or their commitment to protecting the environment. They have taken great satisfaction in displaying their organic or biodynamic credentials. No less would be expected in a field that prides itself on offering a natural, agricultural product.

Far less attention has been paid over the years to how wineries treated the people who are doing the actual farming and production work. It’s been an enormous oversight, particularly as agricultural workers continue to be prime targets for exploitation.

Just last year four workers died in Champagne while harvesting grapes in extreme heat. French prosecutors in 2023 also opened human trafficking investigations into companies supplying seasonal workers. Similar scandals have occurred all over the agricultural world over the years.

Recognizing the long history of exploitation, and perhaps wanting to codify their social values along with their environmental and agricultural practices, a growing number of wine producers have sought certification demonstrating their commitment to what many call social sustainability.

These certifications can come from local wine-oriented organizations, like Napa Green in California, LIVE in the Pacific Northwest, Equalitas in Italy and Haute Valeur Environnementale in France. The Regenerative Organic certification has a social fairness requirement in addition to its agricultural standards. And more and more wineries are seeking B Corp certification from B Lab, which promotes the notion that companies benefit by working for both profits and the social good.

Roughly 100 wineries worldwide have B Corp certification. They include significant names like Spottswoode in Napa Valley, Felton Road in New Zealand, Bollinger and Charles Heidsieck in Champagne, Sokol Blosser, Stoller, Soter and Chehalem in Oregon, Rathfinny and Ridgeview in England, Avignonesi in Tuscany, Benjamin Bridge in Nova Scotia and many more.

Among the most recent to receive certification is Domaines Barons de Rothschild, the parent company of Château Lafite Rothschild and other estates in Bordeaux, Chablis, Languedoc, Chile, Argentina and China.

Why would a company as prestigious, as aristocratic, as Lafite Rothschild seek B Corp status?

“When nature is the core of the product you produce, you have to have extremely strong convictions,” said Saskia de Rothschild, who succeeded her father, Éric de Rothschild, as chairman of the domaines in 2018 and chief executive of Lafite in 2021. “How can we put that at the core of what we are doing? B Corp seemed the most complete and exhaustive commitment to our environmental and social goals. We did it for all of our estates.”

Working in Bordeaux, particularly at a historic, celebrated place like Lafite Rothschild, she said, could be socially “very strange.”

“How can we keep to our philosophy, and make people feel part of a family of estates but make it professional rather than paternalistic?” she said. “Our business depends on balance — in the wines, in our company, in nature.”

Achieving B Corp status is no easy thing. It requires a comprehensive analysis of how a company does business, with different standards for different industries. Wine producers are assessed for how they manage water and waste, for how harmonious their agricultural practices are with their particular environment, whether they promote biodiversity and how they manage their workforces.

That means analyzing the gender and racial diversity of a company’s employees as well as its income diversity. The average pay ratio of chief executive-to-worker among S&P 500 companies was 272-to-1 in 2022, according to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Among B Corp companies, B Lab says, it’s 6-to-1. Companies are also asked about their career-development programs, and how their organization relates to their local communities.

“We set standards, and companies must meet minimum thresholds,” said Sarah Schwimmer, interim co-lead executive of B Lab, which began certifying companies in 2007. “They complete the assessment. We have analysts who verify. They ask for documentation and they may do site visits. You’ve got to really want it.”

Companies are given points in each area, and must achieve a minimum of 80 points to be awarded B Corp status. But that’s only the beginning. B Lab points out where companies can improve, and recommends steps toward making those changes. And companies are regularly reassessed.

“It really is like going to your doctor,” said Alex Sokol Blosser, the second-generation president of Sokol Blosser in the Willamette Valley. “Your doctor says, ‘You need to exercise more, and here are your options.’ B Corp says, ‘You need to think about your team and your community in how you run your business, and here’s how you can do that.’”

Sokol Blosser has been a B Corp since 2015. Mr. Sokol Blosser says it was a decision that followed the values instilled in him by his parents, Susan Sokol and Bill Blosser, who founded the winery in 1971.

“It resonated with my mom,” he said. “She’s a firm believer in the triple bottom line,” the sustainability measure that looks at three areas: people, planet and profitability. “It’s on every one of our labels. We’re proud of it.”

For Beth Novak, chief executive of Spottswoode in Napa Valley, B Corp status has been eye-opening.

“The process itself is amazing,” she said. “You learn a lot. All sorts of things arise as you’re answering questions, and, ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.’ We’ve adopted many of them.”

She said the only drawback is that not enough people know about B Corp or what it stands for.

“We think there’s a way to operate that’s important,” she said. “Our whole ethic is around the natural environment and taking care of our people. The whole Milton Friedman thing about maximizing shareholder value has not led us to a good place at all in terms of natural environment and workplace.”

Inevitably, when companies promote values that at one time might have seemed idealistic but have now become lightning rod political issues, like diversity, equity and inclusivity, antiracism, social justice and taking care of one’s environment and ecosystem — all at the heart of B Lab’s ethos — some sort of resistance might be expected.

Rainer Seitz, an associate professor of management at Linfield University in McMinnville, Ore., pointed to two recent examples, Target and Bud Light, which have both dialed back vocal support for Pride Month after conservative backlash to their position on L.G.B.T.Q. issues.

“Companies have to ask themselves whether their stance is counterproductive,” Dr. Seitz said. “Is it central to who we are and to our values? What is the potential cost of doing this? Or not doing this? It is a brave stance to seek out and take on standards. It’s not for everyone.”

The bottom line, he said, is whether it makes good business sense. Apparently, it often does.

“Organizational justice — if you treat people well and fairly at work — lots of good things happen,” Dr. Seitz said. “There’s less turnover and higher productivity.”

For Napa Green, which has 90 certified wineries and 37 certified growers in Napa Valley, a commitment to racial and social justice is a core value, along with agricultural and workplace sustainability, said Anna Brittain, its executive director.

But promoting diversity is different from creating diversity. Leadership in wine remains overwhelmingly white and male. Yet Ms. Brittain believes wine has a crucial role to play in demonstrating that change can come.

“We’re at the peak of the agricultural pyramid, so the leadership we show has much bigger reverberations,” she said.

Akilah Cadet, an organizational and management consultant and author of “White Supremacy Is All Around,” works with Diversity in Wine Leadership Forum, which supports initiatives to transform the wine industry. She applauds the accountability that certification requires but warns that, depending on the regulatory body, these certifications can often be performative. She rues the decline in D.E.I. efforts that has come, she said, as people in charge want to feel comfortable again.

“Being comfortable typically excludes women, BIPOC, L.G.B.T.Q. and disabled communities not only as consumers but as experts or contributors to the wine industry,” Dr. Cadet said. “It is time the wine industry moves away from fads and trends and realizes the future of wine is just as diverse as the grapes.”

Both Ms. Brittain of Napa Green and Ms. Schwimmer of B Corp assert that social sustainability not only makes companies work more cohesively, it appeals to the public, particularly to younger consumers, with whom the wine world is struggling to broaden its appeal.

“It seems like a no-brainer,” Ms. Brittain said. “Studies all show consumers want to support values-driven industries.”

B Corp’s own studies show that a majority of consumers agree that environmental and social certifications make a difference in their decisions. Charlotte Levitt, a B Corp representative, pointed to a report from Edelman Trust Barometer, a poll of 36,000 individuals, which concluded, “Societal leadership is now a core function of business.”

For Ms. Rothschild, it’s just good business.

“Wine can be excluding and pretentious,” she said. “The wine industry is super traditional. It’s opening the doors to different kinds of people.”

Perched on a hill with a view of the Atlantic Ocean, the condo in Virginia Beach was just what Dr. Raven Baxter wanted. It had a marble fireplace, a private foyer and details like crown molding and wainscoting in its three bedrooms and three bathrooms.

At $749,000, it was within her budget, too. She offered the asking price, which was accepted, and sent over a down payment. And then when she was in escrow earlier this month, her broker called her late at night on May 17, a Friday, with some bad news.

The seller wanted to pull out of the deal.

Why? “You could hear the fear and disbelief in his voice,” Dr. Baxter said, recalling what her broker told her next. “He said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but she doesn’t want to sell the home to you, and it’s because you’re Black.’”

The seller, Jane Walker, 84, is white.

Ms. Walker did not respond to requests for comment. Bill Loftis, Dr. Baxter’s broker, said, “We have no comment on this as we can’t do anything to jeopardize our clients [sic] transaction.”

The situation spilled out into the open a few hours later, when Dr. Baxter, 30, a molecular biologist and science communicator who runs the website Dr. Raven the Science Maven, shared what happened in a post on X. Her public airing to 163,000 followers and others has drawn attention to bias that continues to plague the housing industry, and the laws that are supposed to prohibit discrimination, even as Dr. Baxter took steps to continue to ultimately buy the condo.

Two federal laws — the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the much older Civil Rights Act of 1866 — make it illegal for both home sellers and their real estate agents to discriminate during a home sale. But more than 50 years after redlining was outlawed, racial discrimination remains an issue, housing advocates say. A multiyear undercover investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance, a Washington-based nonprofit coalition of housing organizations, found that 87 percent of real estate agents participated in racial steering, opting to show their clients homes only in neighborhoods where most of the neighbors were of their same race. Agents also refused to work with Black buyers and showed Black and Latino buyers fewer homes than white buyers.

Following the recommendation of commenters on her social media post, Dr. Baxter filed a claim of discrimination with the Virginia Fair Housing Office and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She also reached out to a civil rights attorney.

“Had I not gone to Twitter and received help from people who knew what they were doing, I would have been panicking the entire weekend,” Dr. Baxter said. “It was my first time buying a house. I knew my civil rights were being violated. I knew that something illegal was happening, but no one knew what to do.”

‘Fell Back in My Chair’

Dr. Baxter, who works remotely for Mt. Sinai hospital in New York, currently shares a rented apartment in Alexandria, Va., with her boyfriend, Dr. Ronald Gamble Jr., 35, a theoretical astrophysicist. After a divorce two years ago, she was eager to own a home outright, and Dr. Gamble encouraged her to find a house near the beach, which has long been a dream of hers. He promised to split his time between the new house and Washington, D.C., where he works at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Dr. Baxter first saw the listing for the Virginia Beach condo in early May on Zillow, and contacted the agent, Wayne Miller, who offered to visit it for her and provide a tour over FaceTime.

Dr. Baxter kept her camera off while Mr. Miller, who is white, toured the home with Ms. Walker’s agent as one of the guides. The virtual tour was enough for Dr. Baxter to jump with an offer.

“It’s a classic home with a ton of character. It’s absolutely gorgeous and you can walk to the beach. It was like a steal,” she said. “I basically put in an offer sight unseen.”

Two weeks later, with the home sale in escrow and on the same day of a home inspection, Dr. Baxter and Dr. Gamble made the three-hour drive to Virginia Beach to see the house in person for the first time. Ms. Walker arrived as the couple was leaving, and Ms. Walker’s agent, Susan Pender of Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty, introduced the seller to the buyer.

Shortly after Dr. Baxter and Dr. Gamble drove away from the home, Ms. Walker informed her agent that she was not willing to sell her home to a person who is Black and she wished to cancel the sale, according to a chronology of events compiled by Mr. Miller and shared with The New York Times by Dr. Baxter. Mr. Miller declined to comment, and Ms. Pender did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

But what followed, according to Dr. Baxter and Dr. Gamble and supported by Mr. Miller’s recounted, written timeline, was a series of frantic actions by real estate agents on both sides focused on salvaging the home deal.

Ms. Walker’s agent called Mr. Miller to say Ms. Walker wanted to back out of the home sale. Mr. Miller, in turn, called Mr. Loftis, who is the supervising broker for 757 Realty, where Mr. Miller is an agent, to ask for guidance.

As Dr. Baxter was getting ready for bed at a hotel in Virginia Beach later that evening, she got the phone call from Mr. Loftis.

She put the phone on speaker so that Dr. Gamble, who was working on his research in the hotel room at the time of the call, could hear the conversation.

“I kind of fell back in my chair,” Dr. Gamble said. “I could not believe what I was hearing. Well after the Civil Rights movement, after Covid, after George Floyd, you would think society isn’t still thinking this way. But in 2024, they still are.”

In a flurry of emails and calls over the next 24 hours, which were received and recorded by Dr. Baxter and reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Miller and Mr. Loftis expressed shock at the turn of events and sympathy for Dr. Baxter. They also assured her the home sale would go through despite the seller’s wishes.

They did not immediately offer guidance on how Dr. Baxter could protect herself legally or file a discrimination complaint under the Fair Housing Act. Representatives with both HUD and the National Fair Housing Alliance advised that this should have been their first step.

Dr. Baxter turned to social media just after midnight on Saturday. She was defiant, ending her post with, “Baby, I’m either buying your house or buying YOUR BLOCK. CHOOSE ONE.”

‘We Handled This’

Hours later, Mr. Loftis wrote in an email to Dr. Baxter. “It was unfortunate that the seller took her position to bring Race [sic] into the process,” he wrote. “It sounds like the seller’s kids were able to turn her around. While it was an unfortunate issue, hopefully your purchase is back on track.”

Mr. Miller called Dr. Baxter, who said she was panicking that she would lose the home. In that conversation, he encouraged her to sign an inspection contingency removal addendum, releasing the seller of all obligations to make repairs on the home, despite the home’s inspection revealing an air-conditioning system that was more than 30 years old and in need of upgrade. Two days later, on the instructions of Mr. Loftis, Mr. Miller sent Dr. Baxter an email with a link to Virginia’s fair housing complaint form.

In an email, Jay Mitchell, a supervising broker at Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty, wrote that neither party had withdrawn from the transaction. “As a company, we condemn any kind of discrimination regardless of the source or the target. All of our agents and staff are fully trained on being aware of discrimination in its many forms,” he said. He declined to answer further questions.

A spokeswoman for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, the residential real estate firm owned by Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy, said that RW Towne Realty was an independently owned and operated company that only licensed the Berkshire Hathaway name.

“Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and its parent company, HomeServices of America, strictly adhere to The Fair Housing Act and do not tolerate discrimination of any nature,” she added.

Shortly after The New York Times contacted Mr. Mitchell, Dr. Baxter received an email from Barbara Wolcott, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty.

“In light of the actions of our horribly misguided seller, I feel compelled to send you this email,” she wrote. “Please be assured that the attitude of this individual is not something that is tolerated by Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty, Susan Pender, or anyone within our organization or area.”

When reached by phone and asked how Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty was not tolerating the actions of the seller, Ms. Wolcott said, “We handled this. All you need to know is it was corrected the next day,” and declined to answer further questions.

Dr. Baxter’s home sale remains set to close later this summer. But even if the deal goes through, her rights under the Fair Housing Act have still been potentially violated, said Brenda Castañeda, deputy director of advocacy for HOME of VA, a nonprofit that assists Virginians who believe they have experienced housing discrimination. Real estate agents are required by law to not discriminate, which means they must inform sellers who insist on acting with prejudice that they will not represent them, and extricate themselves from a sale if the seller will not acquiesce. But there are other ways discrimination can play out.

“I don’t know that you can cure discrimination just by changing your mind and going through with the deal,” Ms. Castañeda said, adding that the actions of the real estate agents on both sides could also be a violation. “There may be damages experienced by that person because they’ve experienced a loss of their civil rights and the distress of having a discriminatory statement said to them.”

She added, “Dr. Baxter has experienced harm whether the transaction goes through or not. We just want this to be a wake-up call to people.”

Do you have a headache or is it a sinus infection? What does a stress fracture feel like? Should you be worried about the pain in your chest? If you Google those questions now, the answers may be written by artificial intelligence.

In May, Google rolled out a new feature called A.I. Overviews that uses generative A.I., a type of machine-learning technology that is trained on information from across the internet and produces conversational answers to some search questions in a matter of seconds.

In the weeks since the tool launched, users have encountered a wide array of inaccuracies and odd answers on a range of subjects.The company later appeared to roll back the feature for some searches as it tried to minimize those errors.

When it comes to the A.I. answers to health questions, experts said the stakes were particularly high. The technology could point people toward healthier habits or needed medical care, but it also has the potential to give inaccurate information. The A.I. can sometimes fabricate facts. And if its answers are shaped by websites that aren’t grounded in science, it might offer advice that goes against medical guidance or poses a risk to a person’s health.

The system has already been shown to produce bad answers seemingly based on flawed sources. When asked “how many rocks should I eat,” for example, A.I. Overviews told some users to eat at least one rock a day for vitamins and minerals. (The advice was scraped from The Onion, a satirical site.)

“You can’t trust everything you read,” said Dr. Karandeep Singh, chief health A.I. officer at UC San Diego Health. In health, he said, the source of your information is essential.

Hema Budaraju, a Google senior director of product management who helps to lead work on A.I. Overview, said that health searches had “additional guardrails,” but declined to describe those in detail. Searches that are deemed dangerous or explicit, or that indicate that someone is in a vulnerable situation, such as with self-harm, do not trigger A.I. summaries, she said.

Google declined to provide a detailed list of websites that support the information in A.I. Overviews, but said that the tool worked in conjunction with the Google Knowledge Graph, an existing information system that has pulled billions of facts from hundreds of sources.

The new search responses do specify some sources; for health questions, these are often websites like the Mayo Clinic, WebMD, the World Health Organization and the scientific research hub PubMed. But it isn’t an exhaustive list: The tool can also pull from Wikipedia, blog posts, Reddit and e-commerce websites. And it doesn’t tell users which facts came from which sources.

With a standard search result, many users would be able to distinguish immediately between a reputable medical website and a candy company. But a single block of text that combines information from multiple sources might cause confusion.

“And that’s if people are even looking at the source,” said Dr. Seema Yasmin, the director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative, adding, “I don’t know if people are looking, or if we’ve really taught them adequately to look.” She said her own research on misinformation had made her pessimistic about the average user’s interest in looking beyond a quick answer.

As for the accuracy of the chocolate answer, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Tufts University, said that it had some facts mostly correct and that it summarized research into chocolate’s health benefits. But it does not distinguish between strong evidence provided by randomized trials and weaker evidence from observational studies, he said, or provide any caveats on the evidence.

It’s true that chocolate contains antioxidants, Dr. Mozaffarian said. But the claim that chocolate consumption could help prevent memory loss? That hasn’t been clearly proved, and “needs a lot of caveats,” he said. Having such claims listed next to one another gives the impression that some are better established than they really are.

The answers can also change as the A.I. itself evolves, even when the science behind a given answer hasn’t changed.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement that the company worked to show disclaimers on responses where they were needed, including notes that the information that shouldn’t be treated as medical advice.

It’s not clear how, exactly, AI Overviews evaluate the strength of evidence, or whether it takes into account contradictory research findings, like those on whether coffee is good for you. “Science isn’t a bunch of static facts,” Dr. Yasmin said. She and other experts also questioned whether the tool would draw on older scientific findings that have since been disproved or don’t capture the latest understanding of an issue.

“Being able to make a critical decision — to discriminate between quality of sources — that’s what humans do all the time, what clinicians do,” said Dr. Danielle Bitterman, a physician-scientist in artificial intelligence at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “They are parsing the evidence.”

If we want tools like A.I. Overviews to play that role, she said, “we need to better understand how they would navigate across different sources and how they apply a critical lens to arrive at a summary,” she said.

Those unknowns are concerning, experts said, given that the new system elevates the A.I. Overview response over individual links to reputable medical websites such as those for the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic. Such sites have historically risen to the top of the results for many health searches.

A Google spokesperson said that A.I. Overviews will match or summarize the information that appears in the top results of searches, but isn’t designed to replace that content. Rather, the spokesperson said, it’s designed to help people get a sense of the information available.

The Mayo Clinic declined to comment on the new responses. A representative from the Cleveland Clinic said that people seeking health information should “directly search known and trusted sources” and reach out to a health care provider if they’re experiencing any symptoms.

A representative from Scripps Health, a California-based health care system cited in some A.I. Overview summaries, said in a statement that “citations in Google’s A.I. generated responses could be helpful in that they establish Scripps Health as a reputable source of health information.”

However, the representative added, “we do have concerns that we cannot vouch for the content produced through A.I. in the same way we can for our own content, which is vetted by our medical professionals.”

For medical questions, it’s not just the accuracy of an answer that matters, but how it’s presented to users, experts said. Take the question “Am I having a heart attack?” The A.I. response had a useful synopsis of symptoms, said Dr. Richard Gumina, the director of cardiovascular medicine at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

But, he added, he had to read past a long list of symptoms before the text advised him to call 911. Dr. Gumina also searched “Am I having a stroke?” to see whether the tool might produce a more urgent response — which it did, telling users in the first line to call 911. He said he would immediately advise patients experiencing symptoms of a heart attack or a stroke to call for help.

Experts encouraged people looking for health information to approach the new responses with caution. Essentially, they said, users should take note of the fine print under some A.I. Overviews answers: “This is for informational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional. Generative A.I. is experimental.”

Dani Blum contributed reporting.

Good morning. Julie Powell famously learned to cook by making her way through all of Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” an endeavor she chronicled in a blog that became a book and then a movie.

I tried a similar march with Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby’s “Let the Flames Begin” when I was coming up, but no blog or culinary bildungsroman emerged from the process, much less a Hollywood film. Still, I got very good over the fire. I used the book to practice and then to master (maybe?) the art of American grilling, and the confidence it gave me eventually allowed me to stray from the recipes, to adapt them and eventually to make them my own.

This recipe for grilled soy-basted chicken thighs with spicy cashews (above) is one of my favorite examples, an adaptation of an appetizer dish that Schlesinger and Willoughby developed at the turn of the century. The skinless meat browns beautifully over a medium flame and a basting of gingery soy sauce and brown sugar lacquers it beautifully at the end.

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Grilled Soy-Basted Chicken Thighs With Spicy Cashews

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I serve the chicken over salad greens, generally, with white rice on the side, with plenty of sriracha-roasted cashews for texture and heat. But you could freestyle a po’boy if you prefer, with shredded lettuce, a little mayonnaise and just as many cashews. That’s a fantastic weekend-ender, just the sort of meal to combat the Sunday scaries.

As for the rest of the week. …

Monday

The warmth and slight citrusy heat of ground cumin plays beautifully in Hetty Lui McKinnon’s recipe for stir-fried cumin green beans and mushrooms. It’s nice with your standard supermarket button mushrooms and transcendent with oysters.

Tuesday

Lidey Heuck’s recipe for a classic tuna melt uses chopped cornichons, whole-grain mustard and extra-sharp Cheddar to deliver a sandwich that’s fancy enough for dinner, alongside a green salad. Lidey makes the melts with buttered exteriors. I add a swipe of mayonnaise for extra browning and a fantastic crunch.

Wednesday

Hetty again! I love her new recipe for a tofu and herb salad with peanut sauce, particularly now that snap peas are showing up in the market. Use all the herbs in your crisper: mint, cilantro and basil, particularly. And don’t stint on the two-ingredient sauce, which you could drizzle over a sock and still have a fine meal.

Thursday

I enjoy the tempura-like crust on Christian Reynoso’s new recipe for crispy shrimp tacos, along with the smoky heat of the chipotle crema drizzled over the top. Pair with sliced cabbage and warm tortillas and find yourself transported to a Baja of the mind.

Friday

And then you can soar into the weekend with Millie Peartree’s oven-cooked barbecue ribs, a recipe that employs smoked paprika in place of burning oak. You could use store-bought barbecue sauce to glaze the meat. But I make my own in 10 minutes and recommend you do the same.

There are thousands more recipes to cook this week waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. Yes, you need a subscription to read them. Subscriptions make this whole enterprise possible. Please, if you haven’t taken one out yet, would you consider subscribing today? Thank you.

If you find yourself in trouble with our technology, please reach out for help. We’re at cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. Or, if you’d like to send us a rocket or say something nice, you can write to me. I’m at foodeditor@nytimes.com. I can’t respond to every letter. There’s a lot of mail. But I read every one I receive.

Now, it’s nothing to do with chafing pans or electric kettles, but my mention last week of the Australian novelist Peter Temple’s excellent Jack Irish novels caused my inbox to fill with recommendations to watch the television series that came out of them, starring Guy Pearce. Thank you!

Heartbreaking: this investigation into Baltimore’s response to rising overdose deaths, by Alissa Zhu, Jessica Gallagher and Nick Thieme, reporters for The Baltimore Banner who are working with The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship.

You should read, as well, Geoff Edgers in The Washington Post, on Josh Jones, a Black rising star in classical music who lost his job at the Kansas City Symphony. He’s not going quietly.

Finally, today would have been Gilbert Baker’s 72nd birthday. The self-described “gay Betsy Ross,” Baker stitched the first rainbow flag in 1978. Happy Pride Month. I’ll be back next week.

A confession: I almost always pull back the sugar in a dessert recipe. (I’m sharing this here because I don’t think I’m alone.) I do this because 1) I come from a home where “not too sweet” is the highest praise a dessert can get; 2) I get cavities just by thinking about sweets; and 3) I love, love, love fresh fruit, and the last thing I want to do to my perfect, beautiful, expensive farmers’ market finds is dull their bright personalities with heaps of sugar.

So maybe your eyes will widen like mine did at the first line of this blueberry cobbler recipe: “This cobbler, which comes from the kitchens of Chez Panisse, prizes the berries above all, using only ⅓ cup of sugar.” Just a third of a cup to sweeten four and a half cups of fresh blueberries! No wonder the comments on this Lindsey Remolif Shere recipe, adapted by Molly O’Neill, are glowing: “I have about a dozen cobbler recipes, this one is now number one,” and “I’ve made this many times and it’s so delicious I could eat the whole thing by myself.” My favorite: “Everyone sat stunned after the first bite and we were almost speechless for a moment.” A cobbler that clobbers.

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Chez Panisse’s Blueberry Cobbler

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I haven’t yet made Sheree Sarabhaya’s kai yang — a recipe for Thai barbecue chicken adapted by Alexa Weibel — but I’m certain it will also be a showstopper. All our umami friends are here in this marinade: oyster sauce, Golden Mountain seasoning sauce, fish sauce and soy sauce, with earthy turmeric, acidic lemongrass and spicy ginger rounding everything out. Melissa Clark’s grilled salmon salad with lime, chiles and herbs is another flavorful hit, the dressing here based on nước chấm. I’ll absolutely make more salmon than I need for dinner so I can pile leftovers on rice with sliced cucumbers for a fantastic lunch.

Another confession: I like zucchini only when it’s been cooked within an inch of its life, on the verge of complete collapse, so this new roasted zucchini and shrimp with za’atar yogurt from Melissa calls to me with its deeply caramelized and soft half-moons. And while we’re talking za’atar, I must remind you that Ham El-Waylly’s za’atar and labneh spaghetti exists and that it is so, so good.

Lastly, we’re entering dips for dinner season, so I’ll leave you with a hot dip and a cold dip. I’d easily destroy Yotam Ottolenghi’s new butter bean dip with frizzled onions and preserved lemon in one sitting, which is OK, because it’s mostly beans (and beans are very good for you). Similarly, I would park myself close to Margaux Laskey’s cowboy caviar at a cookout and steadily scoop away at this mix of beans, corn, diced tomatoes and peppers. As Margaux notes, it’s also called Texas caviar, and our Texan readers have shared plenty of tips in the comments.

Wendy Mazur said her “jaw hit the floor” when she saw her favorite pop singer, Goldford, walk out with his guitar during her first dance with Jerry Bedwell at their wedding in April 2022.

The couple considered the ballad “Upside Down” their song and had made it the theme of their reception at City Winery in Nashville. Their guest book, for example, was a custom puzzle of the “Upside Down” cover art.

Mr. Bedwell, 55, who works in information technology, surprised Ms. Mazur, 47, by hiring the musician to perform the love song live.

“I still get teary-eyed thinking about what Jerry did for me, making Goldford part of our wedding day,” said Ms. Mazur, a technology consultant and freelance writer. “What a loving surprise he gave me.”

Instead of opting for a simple recording for the first dance or a playlist for the after-party, some couples are splurging on surprise performers — Broadway stars, singer-songwriters, Grammy Award-winning acts — for their weddings, treating friends and family members to unexpected, meaningful experiences.

Celebrity performances at weddings have recently made headlines: In April, Ankur Jain, the chief executive of Bilt Rewards, a loyalty rewards company, arranged to have the singer Robin Thicke and the electric violinist Lindsey Stirling for his wedding in Cairo to Erika Hammond, a wrestler with World Wrestling Entertainment.

For Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s recent pre-wedding celebration in Jamnagar, India, Rihanna took the stage, as well as the Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan. Mariah Carey sang her top hits for the fashion retail executive Umar Kamani and the model Nada Adelle at their wedding reception in Antibes, France, in May.

“A surprise headliner is not something the majority of guests have ever experienced before, even if they have been to dozens of weddings,” said Tracy Taylor Ward, an event planner in New York who most recently worked with Flo Rida for a wedding performance. “It’s incredibly memorable and fun.”

Booking a headliner isn’t cheap: The vendor can cost anywhere from thousands of dollars to $3 million, Ms. Ward said. A top name like Rihanna or Lady Gaga could fetch up to $5 million, said Josh Friedman, the owner of Élan Artists, an entertainment services company in New York that books performers for weddings, among other events.

More couples have requested well-known musical acts over the last decade, Mr. Friedman said, with a greater spike after the Covid-19 pandemic. Popular requests, he said, include John Mayer, John Legend, Flo Rida, Maroon 5, Zac Brown Band and Andrea Bocelli.

Marshall Weinstein, who runs the event production agency SET Artist Management, worked with Ms. Ward to surprise his wife, Ariel Moses, with a performance by one of her favorite artists, Mr. Cheeks, at their wedding reception in February 2016 at Gotham Hall in New York.

He thought it would be a playful “throwback moment” to have Mr. Cheeks rap his 2001 hit, “Lights, Camera, Action.”

“The look on her face was priceless — that’s why I did it,” Mr. Weinstein said of Ms. Moses, a publicist. “I would do it a thousand times over again.”

The cost for Mr. Weinstein for Mr. Cheeks’s one-song performance: around $10,000.

Mr. Friedman divides headliners into two categories: slow background music for a ceremony, dinner or first dance, and upbeat party tunes for a reception or after-party. He has coordinated a range of acts: John Mayer to perform “Daughters” for a father-daughter dance; Lady Gaga to sing jazz renditions of her hits during dinner; and Pitbull to kick off late-night, high-energy dancing.

He recommended that couples not only think about their favorite musicians, but also consider what would fit the crowd and the destination. He suggested Shaggy for island weddings and Mr. Bocelli for weddings in Italy. If couples want a dance party, he recommends Ne-Yo or Flo Rida, who both have cross-generational hits. For couples with smaller budgets, he might consider hiring a tenor from the Los Angeles Opera or a Broadway star — just not Idina Menzel, he said. (The range for so-called megastars is $150,000 to $250,000.)

Keeping the crowd top of mind, Eddie Kay, 41, who works in computer engineering, and Alex Zhou, 32, who recently earned her Ph.D. in economics, hired the singer Katherine Ho to perform in English and Mandarin for their wedding in Saratoga, Calif., in April. Ms. Ho is known for her Mandarin cover of Coldplay’s “Yellow” in the film “Crazy Rich Asians,” and Mr. Kay felt that the performance would be welcomed by their Chinese family members in attendance, many of whom didn’t speak English.

Evan Ross Katz, 35, a writer and podcaster, and Billy Jacobson, 30, an engineer, wanted someone “iconic” for their May nuptials in New York. So the couple booked Mandy Moore, who performed her love song from 2000, “I Wanna Be With You,” as well as her top hit, “Candy,” as guests took to the dance floor.

When hiring a music star, couples need to factor in expenses like travel, accommodations, meals, production equipment and even green room requests, which can add to the overall cost, said Jordan Kahn, who owns a namesake music company in Dallas. A headliner’s tour schedule, the wedding location and the number of songs performed can all increase the price as well, he said. It’s also rarely just the headliner whom couples have to consider: They may need to cover the costs for security teams, managers, assistants and other members of the entourage.

A cottage industry has emerged as vendors seek to help couples navigate the process. Music companies that supply D.J.s and wedding bands, like Mr. Kahn’s company and Élan Artists, often serve as the liaisons between talent managers and couples to secure talent and produce the final show.

Rachel Dalton, the president of a namesake production company in New York, helps couples negotiate and finalize contracts with talent using her background as an entertainment lawyer. Her team also personally escorts the performer to and from the venue and ensures that every technical requirement is met. Her production firm has worked with such names as Chris Stapleton, Alicia Keys and the Rolling Stones.

“Everything must be in the artist’s agreement so the couple is protected,” Ms. Dalton said. “It’s a real investment and must be treated as such.”

When David Levy, 29, the royalties manager for a music company, booked Derek Sanders of Mayday Parade to perform three songs during his wedding in Brooklyn in May with Megan Carty, 29, a pharmacist, he also hired a sound engineer and a D.J. to meet equipment needs and make sure that the day-of logistics ran smoothly.

Mr. Sanders sang “Miserable at Best,” one of Ms. Carty’s favorite songs, for the couple’s first dance, followed by two other hits, “I Swear This Time I Mean It” and “Your Song.”

“Derek didn’t just sing and leave — he hung around and took photos with our guests,” Mr. Levy said. “He signed our guest book. He had conversations with us. He was so kind.”

Many musicians enjoy performing at weddings and will often include a meet-and-greet with guests as part of the performance package.

“This is not a corporate event for a faceless company, nor is it a concert,” said Jay Siegan, who books 200 weddings a year with headliners like Celine Dion, the Killers and the Wu-Tang Clan, through his company, Jay Siegan Presents, based in Santa Barbara, Calif.

“This is the singular most important event of someone’s life,” he said.

Dear readers,

I’m telling you first so you can hold me to it: I’m ditching the hair dye this summer. Twenty-five years, countless colorists and thousands of hours of dark brown gunk (not to mention dollars) later, the time has come to embrace my silver roots. I know the growing-in won’t be easy. I know I should have let it happen during the pandemic. (As if lockdown wasn’t stressful enough.) I know that there are certain, shall we say, biases against salt-and-pepper hair, but I’m leaning into a different narrative — one that celebrates wisdom, sparkle and experience. Pizzazz, too, even though the word has always sounded to me like the perfect name for a Chevy sedan. As always, I turn to books to shore up my stance. Here are two that did the trick with levity and gravitas.

—Liz

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If you search on Instagram for “#grombre” and “#silversisters,” you’ll find an entire community of women encouraging, supporting and advising one another through the evolution from dyed hair to what lies beneath. There are tutorials, testimonials and videos. There are evangelists, apologists and philosophizers. There are posters who swear by headbands, highlights, lowlights or stripping — processes that replace your current color with your natural one by matching the shade of your roots or removing dye. (Google “Jack Martin hair” and you’ll get the gist.)

I’m a sucker for a sisterhood — I’ve spent hours scrutinizing strangers’ tresses and liking their mirror selfies — but, for me, the last word on hair color or lack thereof still belongs to Anne Kreamer. She documented her brunette-to-gray journey for More magazine (may it rest in peace), then expanded those dispatches into a memoir, “Going Gray” (2007). I read it during my first attempt to go natural … and, just to give you some idea of how long I’ve been waffling about my hair, the baby I was pregnant with at the time is now 17.

When I revisited Kreamer’s book a few weeks ago, I remembered the impetus behind her decision: She saw a picture of herself with her teenage daughter and realized that her “much too darkly shellacked helmet of hair” wasn’t fooling anyone. “I looked like I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t,” Kreamer writes. I can relate.

“Going Gray” has a few dated moments; Hillary Clinton was still a senator when it came out. But “the gulf between the two camps, the embracers and resistors” is still, as Kreamer describes it, “pretty vast.” There are still plenty of people who LOVE gray hair and cannot WAIT to see yours but wouldn’t in a million years allow theirs to see the light of day. To be fair, my friends have been around this block before and they’re probably tired of having the same conversation with me every three years.

Like Kreamer, I’ve learned that the best way to succeed at difficult tasks is “to tell as many people as possible as quickly as I can about my plans.” She writes, “The public knowledge becomes a goad to keep me on track.” Amen, sister.

Read if you like: Survival stories, beauty that’s more than skin deep
Available from: Bookstores and libraries but definitely not hair salons

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“I’ll Drink To That: A Life in Style, With A Twist,” by Betty Halbreich with Rebecca Paley

Nonfiction, 2014

“It’s a peculiar phenomenon, but generally when women first come to me, they are very apprehensive. I don’t know why,” Betty Halbreich writes. She was 86 when her memoir came out, and still working as a highly opinionated and unfailingly loyal personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman. Halbreich goes on, “Maybe it’s the store that people have adorned with so many absurd titles, like ‘Mecca of Style’ or ‘Fifth Avenue’s Finest.’ Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s my white hair!”

If you subscribe to the idea — apparently true — that stress causes white hair, “I’ll Drink to That” accounts for every strand on Halbreich’s head. She walks readers through her battle with polio, the dissolution of her marriage, the challenges of motherhood, a suicide attempt, a stint in a psychiatric hospital (where, she lets us know, she was the best-dressed patient) and treatment for breast cancer.

But this isn’t a sad book. It’s a dishy, honest account of a job that became a calling. Halbreich worked with Candice Bergen, Liza Minnelli, the wardrobe stylists for “Sex and the City” and an endless parade of customers in need of life advice along with their ball gowns and interview suits. Her one liners are priceless: “I don’t believe in disposable fashion or people.” “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither should a wardrobe be.” “Too many people wear a label rather than what is becoming.”

Fittingly, Halbreich earned the trust of Babe Paley — her first major client and the “most fashionable woman in the world” — not through couture, but by admiring the unique blue-gray of Paley’s hair. Her career flourished from there.

Read if you like: Fashion, the wisdom of the ages
Available from: bergdorfgoodman.com, an indy bookstore like the one that Halbreich’s mother owned in Chicago, Oak Street Book Shop

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Why don’t you …

• Track down a copy of “Love, Loss and What I Wore” (1995), Ilene Beckerman’s heavy-hitting mini-memoir of a stylish life. The book was made into a play by Delia and Nora Ephron. (Fun fact: Nora was adamantly anti-gray. “The big difference between us and our mothers is only chemical,” she said.)

• Take a spin through Sara Berman’s all-white (except for shoes), meticulously organized closet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Berman was the mother of Maira Kalman, the artist and illustrator who — get this — happened to take the picture that launched Kreamer’s hair odyssey. Kalman and her son, Alex Berman, also immortalized her mother in an illustrated family memoir, “Sara Berman’s Closet.” And do check out Kalman’s other books, especially “Women Holding Things” and “Beloved Dog.”

• Watch “STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces,” about another white-haired icon, Steve Martin.

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At Twelve, a waterfront restaurant in Portland, Maine, the hottest seat in the house is right by the plancha, where you pick up a few tricks (and a little perspiration) while watching line cooks prepare steak after steak. On a recent visit, Everette Allen, the chef at the protein station, made about a dozen strip steaks in an hour.

He seasoned each slab with salt, white crystals visible on the red meat. Then, he seared the steak’s fat cap running along its side by holding it up with tongs perpendicular to the hot metal plancha. After browning both sides of the steak, hard and fast in its own sizzling fat, he transferred it to the oven to finish cooking.

When Mr. Allen placed the dish in front of me, I knew I was in for something special.

For those nights when a chef isn’t making your steak dinner — and when you don’t want to turn on the oven at home — a stovetop butter baste is the way to go.

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The simple method, a classic French technique called arroser, or to baste, involves searing the steak, then adding butter and aromatics like garlic and fresh herbs, and tilting the pan to spoon the pooled butter repeatedly over the meat to gradually bring the internal temperature up to about 120 degrees. As it rests off the heat, the steak will continue rising in temperature to reach a lovely medium-rare. Butter basting your steak helps you achieve an even, rosy pink interior, juicy and full of promise, rather than a distinct red line in the center, which is often tough and somehow both hot and cold at the same time (like seared ahi tuna, and not in a good way).

Hannah Ryder, the chef de cuisine of Twelve, said butter basting works only when the butter is “hot and foaming,” so that its high heat can help elevate the temperature within the steak, as well as form a nice crust. If your butter isn’t foamy, she said, “you’re kind of just washing away that sear with flat butter,” which is watery. Another definition for arroser, in French, is “to water,” but that’s not what we want with steak cookery.

In fact, Ms. Ryder suggests listening for “the little popping of the thyme leaves,” a good indicator that your butter is hot enough for a proper baste.

Here’s one more tip: The No. 1 trick to cooking steak at home is hiding all of your smoke detectors. “No matter what, that thing will go off,” Ms. Ryder said. (Of course, put them back right afterward.) All this to say, you need high heat to cook a great steak at home. But that’s only half of it: You also need a gentler, more even heat, in the form of an oven or, as in this recipe, a tried-and-true butter baste.

When a seared steak is finished with a hot shower of fat, its center cooks gently and evenly, and its outsides develop a bronze crust infused with whatever you choose to add. In this recipe, ginger, garlic and herbs lend their aromas, and the ginger leeches out its sugars, which caramelize, making the pan sauce shiny and sticky. It’s an overall effect that a quick and hard sear alone cannot duplicate.

While the steak rests, raw asparagus can be stir-fried in the savory pan juices. A splash of soy brings you home, especially once served with white rice to soak up the beef’s buttery remnants, and a spritz of lime resuscitates the palate coated in fat.

This steak might not make you feel as if you’re in a restaurant, because you’ve cooked it yourself. But you’ll appreciate the taste, and the view. It’s the hottest seat in the house.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday raised concerns about the health effects of MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, citing flaws in a company’s studies that could pose major obstacles to approval of a treatment anticipated to help people struggling with the condition.

The agency said that bias had seeped into the studies because participants and therapists were readily able to figure out who got MDMA versus a placebo. It also flagged “significant increases” in blood pressure and pulse rates that could “trigger cardiovascular events.”

The staff analysis was conducted for an independent advisory panel that will meet Tuesday to consider an application by Lykos Therapeutics for the use of MDMA-assisted therapy. The agency’s concerns highlight the unique and complex issues facing regulators as they weigh the therapeutic value of an illegal drug commonly known as Ecstasy that has long been associated with all-night raves and cuddle puddles.

Approval would mark a seismic change in the nation’s tortuous relationship with psychedelic compounds, most of which the Drug Enforcement Administration classifies as illegal substances that have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Research like the current studies on MDMA therapy have corralled the support of various groups and lawmakers from both parties for treatment of PTSD, a condition affecting millions of Americans, especially military veterans who face an outsize risk of suicide. No new therapy has been approved for PTSD in more than 20 years.

“What’s happening is truly a paradigm shift for psychiatry,” said David Olson, director of the U.C. Davis Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics. “MDMA is an important step for the field because we really lack effective treatments, period, and people need help now.”

Amy Emerson, the chief executive of Lykos Therapeutics, said the company stood behind the data and the design of its studies, which were developed in consultation with F.D.A. staff members.

“These are not easy study designs; they are very complicated,” she said.

“Functional unblinding,” in which study participants can determine whether they’ve been given a placebo, often influences research on psychoactive medications because patients are acutely aware of the effects, she said.

A rejection of the application would shake the nascent field of psychedelic medicine, which has been drawing millions of dollars in private investment. Much of that backing has been predicated on the approval of MDMA therapy, which the F.D.A. granted breakthrough therapy designation, or fast-track review, in 2017.

The agency has given the same designation to four other psychedelic compounds, including psilocybin “magic mushrooms” for depression and an LSD-like substance for generalized anxiety disorder.

The criminalization of psychedelics, set in motion by the Nixon administration in the 1970s, effectively killed research on a variety of psychoactive compounds that until then had been showing significant therapeutic promise.

MDMA in recent years has captivated scientists, mental health professionals and patients moved by anecdotes and data suggesting that the drug, when paired with talk therapy, can produce significant improvements in a range of psychiatric conditions, among them anxiety, depression, substance abuse and eating disorders.

The drug is not, strictly speaking, a classic psychedelic like LSD or psilocybin. In its pure form, MDMA is considered an empathogen or entactogen, meaning it increases an individual’s feeling of empathy and social connectedness. But illicit versions of the drug bought for recreational purposes are often mixed with other drugs, increasing the risk of adverse effects.

With the exception of its potential cardiac risks, MDMA has a well-established safety profile and it is not considered addictive by many in the field.

The F.D.A. generally follows recommendations of its advisory panel, and the agency is expected to reach a formal decision by mid-August. But even if it were approved, the agency could heed the advice of its staff and outside experts by imposing strict controls on its use and require additional studies to assess its effectiveness as a treatment.

The last two studies that Lykos submitted to the F.D.A. examined about 200 patients who underwent three sessions — eight hours each — where about half were given MDMA and half were given a placebo, according to a report published in Nature Medicine. In each session, the patients who got MDMA were given an initial dose of 80 to 120 milligrams, followed by a dose half as strong about two hours later. The sessions were four weeks apart.

Patients also had three appointments to prepare for the therapy and nine more in which they discussed what they learned.

The most recent drug trial found that more than 86 percent of those who received MDMA achieved a measurable reduction in severity of their symptoms. About 71 percent of participants improved enough that they no longer met the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis. Of those who took the placebo, 69 percent improved and nearly 48 percent no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis, according to the submitted data.

“It’s easy enough to point out cracks in the study, but there is no doubt that MDMA is helping a lot of people with PTSD,” said Jesse Gould, a former Army Ranger who runs Heroic Hearts, an organization that helps veterans access psychedelic treatments, most often outside the United States. “With no other drugs in the pipeline and with 17 to 22 veterans killing themselves each day, we desperately need new treatment options.”

The F.D.A. has scheduled nearly two hours for public comment on Tuesday, most likely giving a platform to a vocal group of MDMA study participants and researchers who have highlighted what they describe as ethical breaches and pressure to report positive results during clinical studies conducted by MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, which this year changed its name to Lykos Therapeutics.

Approval, if granted, would probably be nuanced. The drug was studied during therapy sessions attended by a psychotherapist and a second therapist who attended for safety, given the vulnerability of patients. The F.D.A. staff analysis proposed some restrictions upon approval, including administering the drug in certain health care settings, monitoring of patients and tracking of adverse effects.

One recent example of such an approval is Spravato, a ketamine nasal spray that the F.D.A. requires to be given by certified providers in a medical setting followed by two hours of monitoring.

In a letter, the American Psychiatric Association urged the F.D.A. to take a measured approach. Dr. Jonathan Alpert, chairman of the group’s research council, said doctors were concerned that agency approval could give rise to fringe treatments by untrained practitioners.

To prevent that, the agency’s approval “must be accompanied by rigorous regulations, strict prescribing and dispensing controls, comprehensive patient education, and ongoing monitoring and surveillance systems,” according to the letter signed by Dr. Saul M. Levin, the association medical director and chief executive.

If MDMA is approved, federal health authorities and Justice Department officials would have to follow certain steps for the drug to be downgraded from a Schedule 1 controlled substance, akin to the process now underway with cannabis. The D.E.A. might also set production quotas for the drug ingredients, as it does with stimulant medications used to treat ADHD.

The F.D.A. records released Friday note that “participants appear to experience rapid, clinically meaningful, durable improvement in their PTSD symptoms.”

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The agency staff analysis released on Friday echoed concerns raised in recent months. In March, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a nonprofit that examines the costs and effectiveness of medications, issued a 108-page report questioning Lykos’s study results and deeming the effects of the treatment “inconclusive.”

The report noted that some study participants told ICER that ideology shaped study outcomes, influenced by a close-knit community of therapists interested in psychedelics to report good results. Some said they felt they would be shunned if they did otherwise.

ICER also described the studies as small and possibly biased by about 40 percent of participants having previous experience taking MDMA — far more than the general population. Lykos has countered the criticism, saying the figure reflects the reality that PTSD patients, desperate for relief, often seek out unregulated treatments.

ICER also cited misconduct reported by Meaghan Buisson, an early trial participant. A video of Ms. Buisson’s session with two therapists, a married couple, suggested inappropriate contact.

“The severe PTSD that brought me into this clinical trial went unaddressed and unresolved,” Ms. Buisson said during a meeting of ICER advisers on Thursday. “All they did was pour a concrete foundation of new traumas over the top.”

MAPS, the original trial sponsor, addressed the matter in 2019 and again in 2022, saying it reported the “ethical violation” to the F.D.A. and health officials in Canada, where the conduct occurred.

In an interview Thursday, Ms. Emerson, the chief executive of Lykos, acknowledged the pain Ms. Buisson experienced but said that rejection of the company’s application could produce greater risks given the growing number of people taking illicit drugs or seeking MDMA therapy at underground clinics.

“The voices of people who have been hurt need to be heard without anybody being defensive,” she said. “But people are desperate for treatments, and pushing MDMA outside of a regulatory pathway is likely to create more harm.”

No matter which way the F.D.A. rules, specialists in the field of psychedelic medicine say there is no turning back, given the mounting trove of promising research and the broad public and political support that has accompanied and buoyed its rise.

Robert Jesse, a longtime researcher who helped set up the psilocybin division at Johns Hopkins University over two decades ago, recalled the days when researchers hid their interest in psychedelic compounds for fear of damaging their careers.

“Psychedelics are now beginning to pass the giggle test,” he said. “What’s remarkable about this moment is that while there are people criticizing aspects of these studies, you have to look hard to find people who are opposed to the drugs on the basis that they psychedelics. The genie is out of the bottle.”