President Trump issued an executive order last week creating a Make America Healthy Again Commission, to be chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Among other targets, the commission will examine “prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors [SSRIs], antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.”
Kennedy has been outspoken on the danger of SSRIs, linking them to school shootings and stating that members of his family “had a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than they have getting off of heroin.”
Kennedy’s views mortify the mainstream media. The Washington Post did a hefty piece portraying Kennedy’s commission as more dangerous than any drugs prescribed to children. To discover the absolute truth, the Post turned to the CEO of the American Psychiatric Association, who assured the Post that “psychiatric drugs can be very effective and generally are given to children carefully after front-line treatments such as talk therapy.”
Decades ago, who would have expected an apology for Adderall, Prozac, Zoloft, and similar drugs to sound like a pitch for Kellogg’s breakfast cereals? Prescription drug use is skyrocketing. Antidepressant prescriptions for young Americans aged 12 to 25 increased by 66% between 2016 and 2022.
The New York Times reported last year that many young people were left worse off thanks to “mental health interventions.” The Times showcased psychiatric “prevalence inflation” – a vast increase in reported mental illness among teenagers who are encouraged to view normal feelings as grave maladies requiring intervention. Oxford University psychologist Lucy Foulkes observed that school programs are “creating this message that teenagers are vulnerable, they’re likely to have problems, and the solution is to outsource them to a professional.”
Hellbound and Down 