RFK Jr.'s Attacks on Anti-Depressants are Dangerous
When you put a grifter in government, he promotes dangerous nonsense.
RFK Jr. once again shows how unqualified he is for any government position, much less the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This time, however, he is focusing on anti-depressants. His fixation on anti-depressants and attempts to portray them as dangerous and useless even as they save American lives is indicative not only of his moral brokenness but also of the unmitigated incompetence of the Trump administration.
What is RFK Jr. Doing?
Earlier last Friday, Mother Jones reported that the newly appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services released a statement ordering the National Institutes of Health to evaluate “the root causes” of many so-called “chronic” diseases. It is worth noting that chronic disease is a broad term covering many diseases and health complications that may not always be related. However, what was striking in this executive order was the focus on a longstanding fixation for RFK Jr.: Anti-Depressants.
In the order titled “ESTABLISHING THE PRESIDENT’S MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN COMMISSION,” particular attention was paid to “the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs…” The use of the term “threat” is notable here, not only because of its complete lack of neutrality about the usefulness of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) but also because of the longstanding animosity RFK Jr. has directed toward them.
Previously, RFK Jr. has claimed that SSRIs cause mass shootings. It is worth noting that the majority of mass shooters were not prescribed anti-depressants, and there is no empirical evidence that anti-depressants cause mass shootings. During his hearings, RFK Jr. lied, claiming he never said that, but as Mother Jones’ Senior editor and reporter Kiera Butler rightly notes:
“A few hours into his confirmation hearings on Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, had a tense exchange with Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN). The subject was Kennedy’s misleading claims that antidepressants caused teenagers to commit school shootings. As Smith pointed out, reams of evidence dispute that claim.
Yet Kennedy persisted in his crusade against SSRIs. “Listen, I know people, including members of my family, who’ve had a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than they did than people have getting off heroin,” he told Smith. (Kennedy himself was once addicted to heroin.)
When Smith brought up Kennedy’s controversial plan to treat SSRI “addicts” at government-sponsored wellness farms, he attempted to distance himself from that idea. “You described Americans who take mental health medications as addicts who need to be sent to wellness farms to recover,” Smith said. “Is that what you believe?” Kennedy promptly denied ever having said “that antidepressants are like addicts.”
But as I reported in July, he actually did lump users of SSRIs and ADHD medications together with people who are dependent on opioids and benzodiazepenes, referring to that broad group as “addicts.” On an episode that month of the Latino Capitalist podcast that was billed as a “Latino Town Hall,” Kennedy unveiled his plan to overhaul addiction treatment programs. He described opioid, antidepressant, and ADHD “addicts” receiving treatment on tech-free “wellness farms,” where they would spend as much as three or four years growing organic produce.”
Aside from potentially committing perjury by denying something he was recorded saying, RFK Jr. not only betrays his true intentions but also demonstrates his complete unwillingness to be held accountable for what he says and does. Such an attitude is dangerous and would be disqualifying in an ideal world, but the Trump administration supports him instead. This support will not only undermine public trust but will also hurt the very people he claims to want to help.
Harming the People
While I have gone into detail about how dangerous RFK Jr. is to public health, especially as it relates to his claims that vaccines cause autism, his opposition to critical mental health care is another insidious level of pseudoscientific cruelty.
However, much of my writing on the subject has been focused on the harm his bigoted remarks inflict on autistic people and scientific cooperation to improve care for autistic people. Indeed, much of the coverage surrounding RFK Jr. has followed that line of observation.
But more than just focusing on the damage RFK Jr. does to autistic people, it is important to examine the way his pseudoscientific views impact the well-being of the people who depend on SSRIs. As Cosmopolitan contributor Kara Cuzzone explains, the demonization of SSRIs does nothing for the people whose lives they save.
During his Senate confirmation hearing last month, RFK Jr. seemingly doubled down on a dangerous earlier claim he’d made about antidepressants: that the rise of school shootings in America is linked to the medication. “There’s no time in American history or human history that kids were going to shoot schools and shooting their classmates,” he’d previously said. “It really started happening conterminous with the introduction of these drugs, with Prozac and the other drugs.” When asked if he stood by that statement, he replied: “I said it should be studied along with other potential culprits.”
The thing is, it has been studied. A 2019 study published in Behavioral Sciences & the Law, which reviewed all publicly available info about school shooters from 2000 to 2017, reads, “It appears that most school shooters were not previously treated with psychotropic medications [including SSRIs]—and even when they were, no direct or causal association was found.” Psychologist Peter Langman, PhD, who wrote School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators, also researched the potential connection. He found that from a sample of 68 school shooters, only 8 were taking a psychiatric medication in the days leading up to their attacks.
At the confirmation hearing, Kennedy also said, “I know people, including members of my family, who’ve had a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than they have getting off of heroin.” This implication that antidepressants are more addictive and harder to stop taking than heroin is also largely baseless. According to a 2024 study published in The Lancet, about 1 in every 35 people who stop taking an antidepressant will experience severe withdrawal symptoms (about 0.028 percent). For most users, that small risk is worth the relief from debilitating mental health symptoms. Opioids like heroin, on the other hand, produce withdrawal symptoms in about 85 percent of users. There’s really no comparison to be made here.
If this kind of fearmongering and misinformation about antidepressants continues, it has the potential to do serious damage. SSRIs are usually the first-choice medication for depression and anxiety because they’ve proven to be safe and effective—plus, they have fewer side effects than most alternatives. Suggesting that antidepressants make people violent and that they’re more addictive than one of the most addictive drugs in the world, villainizes a lifesaving medication that’s used by about 13 percent of Americans. That seems hugely irresponsible coming from someone in charge of the U.S. public health system.
In the simplest terms, RFK Jr. doesn’t care about the consequences of his policy decisions. He is either too consumed by his own conspiracy theories to accept the evidence or is such a grifter that it doesn’t matter to him. Either way, he is a threat to public health and must be removed immediately.
