Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now reportedly preparing to crack down on Americans’ use of antidepressants.
“Psychiatric medications have a role in care, but we will no longer treat them as the default,” Kennedy, who has admitted to a 14-year heroin addiction, warned early this week at a Mental Health and Overmedicalization Summit.
He’s considering banning the use of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), Reuters reported, citing two sources with knowledge of the reduction discussions within HHS.
SSRIs include widely prescribed drugs such as Zoloft, Prozac, and Lexapro, which have been used for decades by Americans suffering from depression. Sources did not reveal which specific SSRIs Kennedy plans to target.
Kennedy, who has no training in health or medicine, has insisted that antidepressants are overprescribed and regularly claims, without evidence, that they’re linked to violence.
Kennedy’s Health and Human Services Department officially denied any move to prohibit antidepressants. The department “has not had any discussions about banning SSRIs, and any claims suggesting otherwise are false,” spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement to Reuters.
Yet Kennedy announced initiatives at the Overmedicalization Summit to reduce the number of antidepressants used by Americans, including “reimbursement” incentives to doctors to stop prescribing them, and sharing data on usage trends. As he outlined the mobilization against the drugs, he also oddly assured the summit audience: “If you are taking psychiatric medication, we are not telling you to stop.”
The Food and Drug Administration cannot ban medications already approved without new evidence of safety risks.
Kennedy, who was named health secretary just months after he dropped out of the presidential race and threw his support behind Donald Trump, has championed health practices that many medical experts say are endangering Americans. Among the most notable has been his baseless claim that the measles vaccine causes autism.
Kennedy’s warning has triggered a significant reduction in the vaccinations parents are obtaining for their children in certain communities and a skyrocketing rate of the sometimes deadly contagious illness. The World Health Organization declared measles eliminated from the United States as recently as 2000, owing to the success of vaccination efforts. The disease has since made a comeback.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment.
