RFK Jr. Licks SSRIs to heroin. No, they are not addictive.

On January 30, 2025By Littum

Hours to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s consultation with the Senate Finance Committee accused Wednesday of voting on his nomination to US Health Minister and Human Services, Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) accused him of spreading lies and wrong information, especially when It comes to mental health care and antidepressants.

By 2024 Kennedy speculated that antidepressant use could explain the increase in school shoots in spite of Lack of scientific evidence to support such claims.

“There is no time in American history or human history of the kids going to schools and shooting their classmates,” Kennedy comedian Bill Maher said on an episode of the podcast “Club Random with Bill Maher” in April 2024. ” Know, it really started to happen con terminous with the introduction of these drugs, with Prozac and the other drugs. “

When Smith asked Kennedy if he stood by this scientifically-invented claim, he lacked a clear answer. “It has to be studied with other potential guilty,” he said, adding, “I just want good science.”

But studies show no causal relationship between antidepressant use and school shooting, and Smith added that “most school protectors were not even treated with antidepressants,” and among those who were there were there “No proof of attachment. “

Kennedy continued to compare Serotonin Recording Inibitors (SSRIs), a common type of antidepressant, including Prozac, Zoloft and Lexapro, with a heroin addiction.

“Listen, I know people, including members of my family who have had a much worse time getting off SSRIs than people are getting off heroin,” he told Smith. Kennedy was previously dependent on heroin.

But psychiatric nurse Sean LeonardFocusing on addiction medicine, disagrees with any comparison between SSRIs and heroin.

“Serotonin receptor sites against opiat receptor sites are night and day,” says Leonard. “It’s so hard to get out of an opiate. Your brain craves what your body craves it; Serotonin, not so much. “

And antidepressants can be life -saving for people struggling with depression, OCD, anxiety and other mental health conditions; Smith even opened his experience with depression and took SSRIs and said the question was “personal to her.”

“These statements that you have made to connect antidepressants to school shooters, they reinforce the stigma that people who experience mental health every day face every single day,” Smith added. “And I’m very concerned that this is another example of your list of sharing fake and misleading information that actually really hurts people.”

The problem of connecting school shootings to medicine

Dr. Ragy GirgisA lecturer in clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and the Lead Researcher of a 2022 study On mass murder that previously told USA Today, there is no evidence of a connection between medicine and shooting.

“SSRIs and mental medicine in general are not responsible for mass shooting or violence in any way,” Girgis said in an E email. “These mental medications have specific anti-violence properties.”

People with untreated serious mental illness are More likely to be victims of violence or self -applying harm than being violent to others.

“This is an appeal to ignorance … there is no evidence that proves that something is false, therefore it must be true,” Julie SweetlandSociolinguist and senior adviser by Hits the institute Said during a press conference Wednesday. “But here he (RFK Jr.), who mentions a context in a way that suggests a causal relationship when this causal connection has been investigated and found not to be there.”

How do SSRIs actually work?

Selective Serotonin -Generation inhibitors (SSRIs) is a class of antidepressants that treat depression and other mental health conditions by increasing levels of serotonin – a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood, appetite, sleep, memory, social behavior and libido – In the brain, according to Cleveland Clinic.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 8.3% of American adults aged 18 years or older had a major depressive episode in 2021; For those aged 18-25, this rate jumped to 18.6%. The monthly antidepressant dispensing for young people increased 66.3% from January 2016 to December 2022, according to a study from 2024 in the journal Pediatry.

During Wednesday’s consultation, Smith Kennedy asked about his previous comments that Americans taking medical health medicine are “dependent” and “must be sent to wellness -farms to recover.” Kennedy denied his previous statements.

But in July referred To a wide group of people taking ADHD medicine or SSRIs and people who depend on opioids and benzodiazepines as “dependent.”

He revealed a plan to send people struggling with dependence on “wellness -yard” in rural areas. On Wednesday, he clarified that these treatment programs should be available, but not forcibly participated.

Taking someone away from an SSRI is called the “withdrawal process,” says Leonard, but it is “nothing to the extent that opiates.” People typically subside their doses and can experience headaches, fatigue and “a little” anxiety, he adds.

“People make themselves feel inadequate or stigmatized because they are on a particular medicine,” Dr. Georges BenjaminCEO of American Public Health Associationsaid during a press conference Wednesday. “It requires a clear explanation for the use of these messages and normalization of mental health so that people do not see it as anything else from hypertension or diabetes or other medicine or other illness.”

Contributing: Hannah Hundall