Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that SSRIs have warnings about thoughts of murder, but mental health experts say this is not true. SSRIs, a typ...
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that SSRIs have warnings about thoughts of murder, but mental health experts say this is not true.
SSRIs, a type of antidepressant drug, were blamed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the church shooting in Minneapolis that killed two children and hurt 18 others. However, experts say that these drugs are "not the problem."
Co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Kennedy on Fox & Friends if the government would look into medications that treat gender dysphoria in violent offenders. Kilmeade brought up the case of Annunciation Catholic School shooter Robert Westman, who was assigned male at birth but legally changed their name as a teen to reflect a female identity, according to NBC.
Police have not confirmed that the shooter was on SSRIs or any other type of psychiatric medication, but Kennedy said that the National Institutes of Health would be "launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence."
"We can't rule those out as a possible cause," Kennedy said, adding that some of the drugs have "black box warnings" that say they can cause suicidal and murderous thoughts.
Some prescription drugs have warnings about the possibility of suicidal thoughts, but none of the SSRIs have warnings about the possibility of murderous thoughts right now. And SSRIs aren't usually given to help people make the change.
It is called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and they work by making your brain make more serotonin. According to the Cleveland Clinic, more than 10% of people who take them for conditions like depression and anxiety. This makes them the most common type of antidepressant.
"SSRIs are not the problem," Ragy R. Girgis, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University, said.
CNN says that Westman wrote in a journal about his depression. It has not been proven that the shooter, who killed people and then killed himself, was taking an SSRI. Time says Westman had a history of being interested in mass murderers and had spoken out in support of Adolf Hitler. He had also graduated from Annunciation Catholic School before shooting the kids who were there.
Mood disorders, which is why people take an SSRI, are what cause violence, not the drug itself. However, one study found that "a small group of patients" may become more violent while taking the drug. The study did say that "a large majority of SSRI-users will not experience the outcome of violent crime," though.
In a harsh post on X, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith responded to Kennedy's comments: "I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don't kill kids, antidepressants do."
"Shut up." Don't keep selling BS. "You need to be fired."