First, let’s just get this out of the way - There is a good chance I would not be alive today without SSRIs and access to therapists and psychiatrists. This rehtoric is dangerous.
The new HHS secretary has made baseless claims that the drugs are addictive and cause violent behavior. .. and .. Trump casts psychiatric and weight-loss drugs as threats to children. Trump directed a panel headed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to assess “the prevalence of and threat” posed by SSRIs, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.
But the document did zero in on another one of his fixations: a class of widely prescribed drugs that treat depression, anxiety, and mood disorders. The government, he said, would “assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, [and] mood stabilizers.”
Kennedy has repeatedly railed against what he sees as rampant overprescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, commonly known as SSRIs, which treat depression and anxiety and include medications like Prozac and Zoloft. As with his previous assertions about vaccines, many of his statements about these drugs are not backed by science. In a 2023 livestream on X with Elon Musk, he claimed that “tremendous circumstantial evidence” suggested that people taking antidepressants were more likely to commit school shootings. (Actually, most school shooters were not taking those drugs, evidence shows.) Kennedy has also called people who take SSRIs addicts—and then tried to claim he didn’t during his confirmation hearings.
When government researchers follow Kennedy’s orders to study SSRIs, they’ll find reams of research, including long-term studies, that have found that the drugs are safe and non-addictive. That’s good news for the 13 percent of American adults who use SSRIs to treat depression and anxiety. In addition to this well-documented track record of safety, manufacturers have closely monitored adverse reactions to the drugs in children and teens. The Food and Drug Administration already requires drug manufacturers to include warnings in packaging because of some evidence that SSRIs can cause a temporary increase in suicidal thoughts in pediatric patients (though evidence on this point is mixed).
By way of Mother Jones and The Washington Post