The real reason RFK Jr. is coming for your antidepressants

The real reason RFK Jr. is coming for your antidepressants
The HHS Secretary's attacks on psychiatric medication follow a pattern of putting politics over public health

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published May 18, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) The siren call was apparently irresistible. “Kennedy Starts a Push to Help Americans Quit Antidepressants,” read a New York Times headline from early May — phrasing that seemed to normalize Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-science, roadkill enthusiast who is currently running the Department of Health and Human Services, and to assume that he wants to help everyday Americans.

But reading the article should disabuse anyone of the notion that Kennedy has sincere, much less helpful, motivations in shepherding an event called the “Mental Health and Overmedicalization Summit,” held by the MAHA Institute, a far-right group organized to wage war on responsible healthcare systems. “No major medical organizations were represented at the gathering,” Times reporter Ellen Barry noted, and it’s not a surprise why. Legitimate medical experts are, to put it mildly, skeptical of taking away mental health medications, especially when there’s no real pathway to effective alternatives for people struggling with depression, anxiety or other psychiatric conditions — or the one in six people who are taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors to manage them.

....(snip)....

The complicating factor here is that antidepressants are prescribed in the U.S. at rates that are above the ideal, which no one really disputes. The argument is over why that is. Are Americans just lazy in turning to a pill instead of working on themselves? Or are there real obstacles to addressing the underlying causes of many mental health concerns?

....(snip)....

Kennedy, however, has no real interest in fixing structural problems that leave people with no choice but to use SSRIs to stabilize themselves. To the contrary, he has a long history of talking about people on SSRIs in dehumanizing, often racist language that implies their actual problem is they’re lazy and need to just work harder — or even work for free. As I wrote in 2025, Kennedy’s “solution” for mental illness looks very much like using prison camps he euphemistically calls “wellness farms.” On these “farms,” the prisoner-patients would be denied access to computers and phones, taking them out of contact with families, and made to do hard labor until some vague, undefined moment where they’ve supposedly recovered — which is unlikely to happen in such circumstances. ....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/05/18/the-real-reason-rfk-jr-is-coming-for-your-antidepressants/