Senior Trump administration Health and Human Services officials are laying the groundwork to halt the rapid rise in recent years in prescriptions of antidepressants and other mental health medications as part of the Make America Healthy Again agenda.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced during an event at the MAHA Institute on Monday that his department would begin taking steps to curb what he described as the overmedicalization of mental health conditions and the over-prescription of psychotropic medications.
Recommended Stories
“Today, we take clear and decisive action to confront our nation’s mental health crisis by addressing the overuse of psychiatric medications—especially among children,” Kennedy said in a press release on the new agency actions.
The widespread use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, such as Prozac and Zoloft, has been a target for reform of the MAHA movement and Kennedy in particular.
Kennedy has made several statements in the past blaming antidepressants and other psychotropic medications for violence. He discussed his views during his marathon week of budget hearings in Congress last month, saying that HHS is working on a study connecting antidepressants to school shootings.
Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brian Christine, who also spoke at the MAHA Institute event, told the Washington Examiner in an interview following his address that the administration is not looking to reduce access or unduly regulate SSRIs, but rather to inform patients and providers about possible negative consequences of the drugs.
“It’s all kind of a risk-benefit ratio,” Christine said in the interview. “Patients, men and women in this country, need to understand that.”
Kennedy announced during the event that multiple subagencies within HHS would be taking a “multipronged approach,” including education and outreach as well as policy actions, to curb the overreliance on SSRIs and other psychotropic medications.
As of 2024, roughly 11% of U.S. adults and nearly 4% of those 17 years and younger had an SSRI prescription, according to an HHS report from last spring.
The American Academy of Pediatrics published a bombshell study in 2024, finding that monthly antidepressant dispensing rates for patients between the ages of 12 and 25 increased more than 66% from January 2016 to December 2022. That was in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine told the Washington Examiner that, based on his experience in practice as a urologic surgeon, he thought that most physicians and healthcare practitioners are unaware of some of the infrequent but dangerous side effects of SSRIs, especially for adolescents and young adults.
The MAHA Institute event opened with a panel of several young people sharing their experience of complications from SSRIs, including post-SSRI sexual dysfunction, in which a patient can permanently lose all sexual function if the medication is relied upon for too long.
Other rare but known side effects of SSRIs include an increased risk of suicidal ideation, particularly for those under age 25.
Christine said during his speech that, in his urology practice, he would often meet with male patients who present depression symptoms. Men account for roughly 80% of the more than 49,000 suicide deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Many physicians, Christine said, would simply prescribe a medication instead of referring the patient for other forms of care, such as talk therapy.
“Unfortunately, what follows is a prescription before really asking what’s going on and why,” Christine said during his speech at the MAHA Institute. “And to be clear, medication has a role — there’s no question about that — but we must also be willing to talk honestly about the effects of these medications.”
Christine told the Washington Examiner that, as part of the MAHA emphasis on root causes of chronic disease, his role is “to evangelize” about more holistic methods of improving mental health, such as building close relationships, balanced nutrition, and physical exercise.
“Maintaining good, healthy relationships with your friends and your families and those that you love, getting out, exercising, diet, staying healthy, in other ways, all of these things contribute to good mental health,” Christine said.
Several subagencies within HHS sent a Dear Colleague letter to physicians and healthcare providers on Monday outlining nonmedication approaches to treating depression and other mental health conditions, including family support, psychotherapy, nutrition, and physical activity.
Kennedy also announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, headed by Dr. Mehmet Oz, released guidance for healthcare practitioners on how to get reimbursed for so-called “deprescribing,” or helping a patient transition off of psychotropic medication.
In June and July, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is expected to host a series of educational webinars for prescribers to increase awareness of rare side effects of SSRIs and other psychiatric medications, as well as “evidence-based nonmedication treatments.”
TAKEAWAYS FROM TWO HEARINGS: RFK JR. ON VACCINES, IRAN WAR, NIH FUNDING, AND MORE
HHS is also expected to convene an expert panel of health professionals, patients and families, and professional societies in July to inform the department’s clinical guidance on tapering and discontinuing psychiatric medications.
The new approach from the administration comes just weeks after the Food and Drug Administration announced it would be fast-tracking three psychedelic medications to treat drug-resistant major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
