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 ...
I mean the author’s claim that “most” mass shooters aren’t on an SSRI doesn’t mean that children on an SSRI aren’t more likely to commit mass shooting than those who aren’t.
She’s using a logical fallacy.
I mean the author’s claim that “most” mass shooters aren’t on an SSRI doesn’t mean that children on an SSRI aren’t more likely to commit mass shooting than those who aren’t.
She’s using a logical fallacy.
Drugs are only part of the story. To be complete we must consider a whole slate of factors ranging from socioeconomic status, to education to upbringing and other considerations. While drugs and there many side effects may play a powerful role in abnormal or unhealthy behaviors they are most certainly only one part of the story.
Your key word is low dose.
I am glad to learn that the drug helped you.
“I’ve taken low dose Prozac since 1987. It has made a normal life possible.”
I have several friends who report the same, and I am grateful that such drugs exist. I also cringe when I hear them being prescribed for children, however, as seem to occur far too often these days. That said, I cannot imagine what it would be like trying to grow up in today’s mainstream ‘culture’.
actually, SSRIs do appeare to addictive: i’ve had users tell me they’d like to stop taking them, but the physical neurological withdrawal symptoms were so unpleasant that they just keep taking them to avoid the withdrawal symptoms ...
Why not spend the money on real scientific research, not sponsored by drug companies or those who could make a profit?
I’m glad it helped you. The hospital put my husband on it after his stroke. Not because he needed it. He didn’t. They put him on it because they put all their stroke survivors on it, just in case. When he came home, I weaned him off it, against doctors’ advice. His cognitive function improved.
This is huge! These are why most of this nation is absolutely insane. These are what cause mass shootings and suicides.
I’ve been taking a low dose SSRI for over 15 years. I am a rock ribbed conservative. I don’t shoot up schools, paint my hair purple or put rooting rings in my nose! I just know that severe depression is worse than having your arm cut off!
Any advice coming from anyone associated with Mother Jones is immediately suspect.
The editorial board at Mother Jones don’t need no stinkin’ science. They will make up their own facts, thank you.
Yeah, I know. I always forget my tag for sarcasm posts.
Hurray! About time!
SSRI’s are dangerous drugs, handed out like candy.
Antidepressants..or in other words, psycotropic drugs...
If an investigation was ever done, I believe you would find most school shooters were either under the influence of or withdrawing from this class of drugs...
She apparently filed a complaint...and of course, switched doctors.
My parents were abusive. We were raised by crazy people.
We kids never recovered.
Still dealing with it in our sixties.
Or were they prescribed but the shooters weren’t taking them that day, that week, or forget them half the time or the parent forgot to get them renewed since last month.
Though many times the kids will be normal when they aren’t taken but zombies when they are taken. Sad.
“My parents were abusive. We were raised by crazy people.
We kids never recovered. Still dealing with it in our sixties.”
Sorry to hear that, but the way you describe it clearly crosses the line into child abuse, although laws back then likely weren’t very strong.
Is “depression” a part of life’s journey? A time when God is intervening, forcing us to seek solitude, to turn inward, seek spiritual calm, quiet and answers through prayer. I guess it is kind of like there has to be rain to appreciate sunshine.
We have been indoctrinated to believe we must always be happy, beautiful, popular, which is just not possible and designed to fail. So, we interpret these times as depression, turn to medication, avoiding what God is asking us to do, which is be quiet, turn inward, and soul search for answers.
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