Drug prescribers fret as RFK Jr. investigates kids' use of amphetamines, SSRIs

The prospect the Trump administration might take action that would see multitudes of children taken off addictive, overprescribed, and potentially dangerous drugs has some childhood psychiatrists and other prongs of the pharmaceutical industry both panicking and defending select drugs.

President Donald Trump established the Make America Health Again Commission last week, tasking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with assessing the prevalence and impact of antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and other pharmaceuticals on children. Trump also directed Kennedy to assess "the threat that potential overutilization of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain other exposures pose to children with respect to chronic inflammation or other established mechanisms of disease."

Kennedy, the chair of the commission who initially endorsed Trump partly in hopes of helping make American children healthy again, reportedly made clear at his first meeting with HHS staff on Tuesday that he fully intends to execute the president's directive.

An employee who attended the meeting told NBC News that Kennedy signaled he would take aim at the possible overmedication of children as well as the risks of antidepressants.

Kennedy has made no secret of his desire to officially investigate the adverse and avoidable impacts that pharmaceuticals might have on children.

The HHS secretary noted, for instance, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee that "15% of American youth are now on Adderall or some other [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder] medication. Even higher percentages are on SSRIs and benzos. We are not just overmedicating our children, we are overmedicating our entire population. Half the pharmaceutical drugs on earth are now sold here."

A 2024 study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics found that between 2016 and 2022, the number of Americans ages 12 to 17 with an antidepressant prescription shot up 43%. The researchers noted further that "antidepressant dispensing to adolescents and young adults was rising before the COVID-19 outbreak and rose 63.5% faster afterward."

A 2021 study published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open found evidence of ADHD overdiagnosis and overtreatment in children and adults — especially problematic because the drugs often prescribed are amphetamines, which have numerous side effects and are highly addictive.

The health secretary added during the confirmation hearing that prescription drugs are the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, and they do not appear overall to be making America healthier.

The Trump administration's promise of investigations, transparency, and greater caution around certain drugs appears to have some prescription writers in the medical establishment worried.

'Americans have lost confidence in the medical apparatus that let us down during the COVID pandemic.'

A number of physicians and so-called psychiatric experts recently suggested to The Hill that they are more concerned that children might lose access to psychotropic drugs and other substances than they are worried about overmedication.

Lisa Fortuna, chair of the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Children, Adolescents, and their Families, said, "There is some concern, even more so in the field, that many children with depression and mental health disorders do not get access to the mental health services that they need, and that includes the comprehensive treatment that we would recommend."

Tami Benton, president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, complained to The Hill about Kennedy's previous suggestions that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are addictive and may have something to do with school shootings — a possibility Kennedy indicated might warrant a National Institutes of Health override of medical privacy rules to verify.

Benton suggested these suggestions "don't address the reality of psychiatric treatment" and claimed that "these medications are not addictive."

The Mayo Clinic indicated that missing doses or abruptly going off SSRIs — which have various side effects including anxiety and sexual dysfunction — can cause "withdrawal-like symptoms," a consequence associated with addictive substances that are the result of the physical dependence users can often develop when taking the drugs.

When asked about its investigation into SSRIs and other drugs, White House spokesman Kush Desai told NBC News, "Americans have lost confidence in the medical apparatus that let us down during the COVID pandemic and oversaw an unprecedented explosion in chronic disease."

"The Trump-Vance administration will continue to review current best practices and health care bodies to implement needed reforms," added Desai.

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