US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used a Make America Healthy Again Institute event Monday to announce federal steps to curb prescribing of antidepressants, specifically SSRIs like Zoloft and Prozac. Kennedy repeated his fact-free claim that quitting these drugs is harder than quitting heroin, despite it being debunked by experts.
Speaking less than 15 minutes, Kennedy acknowledged the criticism but dismissed it: “Whenever they say ‘trust the experts,’ they got nothing.” He relied on his own past heroin addiction and an anecdote about a family member to justify the policy.
The new measures include a Dear Colleague Letter urging providers to consider exercise, nutrition, and therapy before medication, and new CMS billing codes to reimburse doctors for deprescribing.
The American Psychiatric Association strongly objected, warning that framing the mental health crisis as “overmedicalization” ignores the fact that too many patients lack access to care. The APA stated that the solution is not to stigmatize medication but to ensure access to evidence-based treatment.
Research reinforces the danger: a 2024 study in Health Affairs found that a similar FDA warning in 2003 may have contributed to thousands of additional suicide deaths, as patients avoided treatment.