The backlash against anti-depressants

In 1987, the FDA approved the first major medication to treat depression paving the way for a new era in mental health. Forty years after the advent of Prozac, antidepressants have become a staple of American life. Around one in six adults report taking psychiatric drugs – most of which are antidepressants.  

Clinical trials show that most patients’ depressive symptoms improved with the drugs, but there’s been growing backlash that they’ve been overprescribed and can leave users hooked without an exit ramp. 

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has led those charges and launched the “MAHA Action Plan to curb psychiatric overprescribing” in May, spurring more attention to side effects and more research into the challenges of getting off of medication.

Mental health professionals are now grappling with the need for reform with the fear that R.F.K. Jr. could be stigmatizing mental health treatment.

So today we’re unpacking how antidepressants have evolved over the last four decades and what the current discourse might mean for the future.

Guests: 

• Sarah Todd, health reporter at STAT News.
• Dr. Mark Horowitz, associate professor of psychiatry at Adelaide University and co-founder of the national psychiatric de-prescribing clinic in the national health service in England. 
• Dr. Roger McIntyre, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Toronto.