Posted on 02/15/2025 7:28:56 AM PST by BenLurkin
Kennedy has repeatedly railed against what he sees as rampant overprescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, commonly known as SSRIs, which treat depression and anxiety and include medications like Prozac and Zoloft. As with his previous assertions about vaccines, many of his statements about these drugs are not backed by science. In a 2023 livestream on X with Elon Musk, he claimed that “tremendous circumstantial evidence” suggested that people taking antidepressants were more likely to commit school shootings. (Actually, most school shooters were not taking those drugs, evidence shows.) Kennedy has also called people who take SSRIs addicts—and then tried to claim he didn’t during his confirmation hearings.
...The Food and Drug Administration already requires drug manufacturers to include warnings in packaging because of some evidence that SSRIs can cause a temporary increase in suicidal thoughts in pediatric patients...
In a podcast appearance last July, Kennedy said he planned to dedicate money generated from a sales tax on cannabis products to “creating wellness farms—drug rehabilitation farms, in rural areas all over this country.” He added, “I’m going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs, if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need—three or four years if they need it—to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities.” The farm residents would grow their own organic food because, he suggested, many of their underlying problems could be “food-related.”
During the confirmation hearings, Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) said Kennedy’s statements about antidepressants “reinforce the stigma that people who experience mental health [conditions]…face every single day.”
(Excerpt) Read more at motherjones.com ...
My neighbor has trouble with that. How did they discover it was a food allergy causing the irregular heartbeat?
Interesting. I see in a later post, you find Prozac and Xanax to be useful for you and that they are tried and true.
I find Adderall useful for me, and it is also tried and true.
However, I do see a problem with overprescription of this medication in very young people. That could be addressed.
Are these two sentences really in the same article?
1. As with his previous assertions about vaccines, many of his statements about these drugs are not backed by science.
2 The Food and Drug Administration already requires drug manufacturers to include warnings in packaging because of some evidence that SSRIs can cause a temporary increase in suicidal thoughts in pediatric patients.
No, I meant the thyroid hormone.
School when your active and inquisitive child is age 6: “Parent, I believe your son needs to be on drugs.”
School when your ‘checked-out’ non-active child is age 16: “Parent, I believe your son is on drugs.”
I’d probably be okay with restricting Adderall/Ritalin to adults only. Let’s allow the brain to develop first, before we decide there is ADD or ADHD.
And I say the above as someone who definitely had ADHD as a child. It persisted into adulthood.
Fun story: One of my peers in high school gave Ritalin to several of us in the same peer group. At the end of the day we compared results.
Kid 1: “OMG, I was racing up and down the hallways! I was so jacked!”
Kid 2: “You should have seen me in Gym class! I was killing it!”
Kid 3: “I could barely sit still in Trigonometry class!”
Me: “Um.... I found... I found I was able to really pay attention in Social Studies class....”
(Everyone turns at me and stares)
Adderalll ruined my brother’s life. Some shrink diagnosed him with adult ADD and prescribed Adderall. He quickly became addicted to it, took his entire prescription too soon and went out looking for more on the black market. Went from having a 100K software sales job, house, marriage, two young kids and beautiful wife to seeing bats hiding in the kids’ hair. When I notified the shrink what was happening, he didn’t believe me. My brother lost everything, the job, the house, the marriage.
My older son’s school and pediatrician wanted to put my son on Adderall at age 8.
I refused, withdrew him from school and homeschooled him. He WAS extremely energetic and active but it just meant creative schooling with lots of hands on activities and lots of breaks.
By high school he had no problem sitting through a day of classes and concentrating, dual enrolling in college. At 30, he is a project manager for a major company with his own crew and accounts and doing very well.
Ignoring those teachers and docs was the best thing I ever did!
Oh, sorry. I don’t remember, but I think thru the years 50 to 100 mg per day. Also, with my yo-yo thyroid, my blood work was never reliable.
I'm really sorry to hear that. See, that's a person who got a bad diagnosis. Anyone who takes the entire scrip and tries to get high on Adderall likely does not have ADD. I take Adderall and have zero urge to abuse it. I take it just as it is prescribed.... sometimes even a lot less. I routinely skip days when I feel the ADD is in check.
The brain is a funny thing. If you actually need a med, it goes to the right portion of your brain. If you don't, the med goes to a pleasure center instead. Same with opiates. If you have real pain, opiates go to the place that suppresses that pain. If you don't have pain, it gets you high.
That psych was a quack who gave out a bad diagnosis and unfortunately your brother paid the price.
Genuinely sorry to hear your brother went down so hard.
Excellent! Your son really never had ADD then. Glad you figured that out.
I agree...it’s not good that so many in the country have to take drugs to feel good.
Well, he was diagnosed as ADHD by 3 different pediatricians.
I think he learned how to channel it. His job requires him to multitask and his brain still goes 100 miles an hour lol
That's rare. I couldn't do it.
What warning?
And no, I don’t find Prozac or Xanax to be helpful, never took a Xanax in my life. Took Zoloft for post partum depression and during my unwanted divorce. Now I just take migraine meds.
Process of elimination. Eventually I met a doctor who was a nutrition fanatic. He had me keep a diary of everything I ate and then cut one thing at a time until I felt fine. Sounds crazy but it was mammal meat.
IMO, the educational system is not equipped to manage it, and it has nothing to do with meds.
They are trying to push a one size fits all style of learning on all children. It doesn’t work.
I knew several other homeschoolers who did the same as we did and worked so I don’t know 🤷♀️. There is something to it, though.
Zoloft, then. My bad. Same observation applies.
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