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RFK Jr. Is Already Taking Aim at Antidepressants
(www.motherjones.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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politics
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Go ahead and take mine away. See what happens. I dare you.
Were you clearly diagnosed with clinical depression?
Or did your doctor not know what was wrong, said it was stress related and gave you pills to go away?
This is a really shitty attempt at a gotcha question, just so you know. I have depression, any neurologist with an MRI of my brain can tell you that, because there's a softball sized cyst and the structural placement of it makes depression highly likely, it's too big to be removed all the empty space would lead to shifting, brain bleeds, embolism, seizures, and strokes which would kill me really quickly. So shunt and valve and medication is my only treatment option. Anti depressants aren't just for people who are having a bad week and don't know how to cope, or people behind on their self care, or people who are facing a life challenge and just need a little pick me up. Anti depressants are being taken largely by people who go to their doctor and say ''I'm so depressed I no longer enjoy the things I used to love doing, I'm struggling to remember what happy feels like, and I can't stop contemplating the end of my life'' it's for people with clear diagnosable depression. Please stop acting like you have any room to jump up people's ass about the maintenance meds they've been taking for years that get them results when nothing else did. Do you think a jog a day is the solution? It's not at all. If that was the solution, this wouldn't ever be a medical problem in the first place, easy solutions don't require medical intervention. If you really think the average person on antidepressants didn't spend YEARS trying to solve it without any medical aid, your delusional.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding that most folks have when it comes to anti-depressants. A lot of people think that you take prozac and it makes you feel "happy" or at least "better". But the reality of it for me is, I take prozac, and stops my emotions from spiralling out of control.
My neurology is like an elderly person on an icy day, it has a tendency to slip and fall over. Anti-depressants are just a walker for my brain, gives me a good chance to not fall over and break a hip.
This, it doesn't give me a joygasm, it just stops me from being overly paranoid
Yeah, my experience is similar - I take zoloft and it doesn't make me feel good or happy all the time but it does make my otherwise crippling anxiety manageable by significantly lowering my base level of anxiety and decreasing the amount of anxiety "spikes" and "episodes" I get
You didn’t have to go that hard. You could have said “are you a doctor? ARE YOU MY DOCTORS? no? Then would you kindly stfu?”
Really they should have known better then to pick a gotcha out of an unknown situation
OK, so you are in the first category
I'm not. My beef is with the doctors who prescribe antidepressants without proper investigation of the causes of the symptoms.
There will be some cases where this is true. But a jog a day is much more effort than having a pill. Particularly if you are out of shape. A pill is much easier for a doctor to prescribe.
Unfortunately paying customers want a medical solution. So they get prescribed a pharmaceutical solution.
My beef is with the doctors that prescribe antidepressants as a generic solution to all symptoms. Not the patients.
Do you have something worthwhile to bring up or are you just trolling?
The fact that some doctors prescribe medications they shouldn't is an ongoing issue for the medical industry that will never go away as long as doctors and patients are humans and we have incomplete knowledge.
It is not a reason to confirm a crazy anti-science vaccine denier as secretary of HHS.
Not trolling. My first post inb this thread acknowledges legitimate uses. I'm just pointing out the silver lining of this policy.
Reducing public dependency on badly prescribed medication doesn't seem evil or anti science, but big pharma won't like it.
Data guy here. You're kinda running into the same rationale used by fascists, I mean republicans, to cut welfare. That being: there exists some number of people that game the system, so lets put rules in place to fight them. Sounds good right?
The problem is this: what's the actual added value of these new rules? For this example, what's the ratio of badly prescribed medicines to correctly prescribed ones? How many people that need the medication have to be denied it to validate catching one bad actor? Is it better to have a few bad actors to make sure everyone gets help, or is it more important to be punitive and make sure that only the right people get the resource?
Well, there's a rational way to answer that. How scarce is the resource? If a solid gold bar was what was required to treat a condition, than yeah you're gonna need to make sure no one is wasting it. But if the treatment is common as dirt, why are we getting in the way?
What's the cost of the system as-is? People take medications they don't need and may experience side effects of this medicine. Given that wellbutrin is hardly a party drug, it's not as if people are seeking this out recreationally. They want to feel better. And if it isn't doing anything, or is making them feel worse, than the discussion with one's doctor should end up with "let's try something else" (YMMV, doctors are sometimes bad, patients are sometimes bad, I'm talking how a typical case should go in a quasi-sensible world).
And you know what's worse? Anyone that isn't the patient and the doctor being involved in that conversation.
But what leads you to believe they are being honest or will proceed in a scientific and humane way?
That is the real concern here. Conservatives describing their intentions in ways that sound good on the surface is the oldest and most practiced technique they have. That is why all the context and history around this craziness is so important.
I think this policy is pure RFKjr. It's not in project 2025 and conservatives wouldn't endanger their big phama paychecks.
Now. It may be hijacked and twisted in its implementation. And I don't think an environmental lawyer should be running health policy.
I think you are right to urge caution. The upsides are minimal and the potential downsides are massive.
Why is RFK Jr a reliable source for any of this? He's hardly a reliable medical source. Dude promotes vaccine lies. He's a lawyer by trade. He has no special medical knowledge or training. Why is he in charge of any of this in the first place?
The same reason as most of the other cabinet positions, I’d imagine. Secret personal loyalty based ones.
Or ye olde "useful idiot". Honestly more rhetorical to draw attention to the absurdity of relying on RFK Jr for health advice.
[ANECDOTAL]
I feel like you haven't gone through the process yourself. I got driven to the point of confessing I would be better off dead before I was considered for anti depressants, it's not just a "I'm sad today" "ok here are anti depressants"
[ANECDOTAL]
I've been down the other road. Countless doctors dismissing symptoms as stress rather than fibromyalgia and prescribing antidepressants.
https://www.northwell.edu/katz-institute-for-womens-health/articles/gaslighting-in-womens-health
as someone that was also given an Rx for antidepressants due to a "fibromyalgia" diagnosis, it's a working theory that one of the reasons for that disorder is, in fact, neurotransmitter dysregulation (e.g., norepinephrine) so that's not completely off-base... sorry. it sucks, but it has to be eliminated as a mechanism. is it possible you have undiagnosed hEDS? that was the case with me, and a geneticist was able to sus it out. please google it, because if you've been diagnosed with fibro it means you have a vague nebula of symptoms that could be any number of things (e.g., lupus) and requires an extensive differential diagnosis which usually ends up being something else (if you're anything like me).
It's that the symptoms constantly change that is so frustrating. Thanks for the tips.
This is a legitimate conversation, but not the time and place. I have had similar issues with SSRI’s being the only solution presented to me (despite previous experiences + knowledge of my body’s previous reactions to these medication being articulated in my refusal) and this is very much due to having an AFAB body.
However, SSRI’s are an effective medication for many people, and the priority in this conversation needs to be on this deranged attack on medical expertise and established understandings of the science. There very much are serious issues with diagnoses/prescriptions being used as alternatives to acknowledging societal problems and a way to make invisible/medically gaslight the understudied chronic illnesses primarily experienced by women, but there are also people who are chemically depressed and are being served by the chemical treatment model - attacks on this fact are profoundly unscientific and harmful and the fact that they are being made by someone potentially leading the medical “establishment” = DEFCON 1.
I highlighted this group at the top of this thread. My beef is with dismissive doctors, not their chemically imbalanced patients.
your contributions are irrelevant to the topic, and also super shitty to bring up around a lot of people that're scared for the mental health of their families. "your beef" isn't worth sniffing, so please take it elsewhere. you should be able to tell from ratios alone that your comments are unwelcome, shameless, and tactless.
Lazy doctors pushing big pharma sponsored pills is right on topic. It doesn't apply to everyone, but it applies to a large number of people.
11% of Americans over the age of 12 take an antidepressant.
This is a problem that shouldn't be ignored even if it is being raised by a right wing, brain worm eaten anti vaxxer.
the reason you're in this thread is because
YOU FEEL UNSEEN BY YOUR DOCTORS BECAUSE THEY DISMISS YOUR PAIN
that's not related whatsoever, i'm sorry, i used to be in your position, i hope you get a real diagnosis for what's wrong (mine was hEDS) because most doctors say it's fibromyalgia when they don't know and they've given up... that's for-profit medicine for you... but, as i've covered elsewhere
people take anti-depressants for several problems, including fibromyalgia
SO MAYBE you should take a step back and chill
Unfortunately it is related.
I hear a lot of anger and fear from people about their medication. And everyone believes their case is justified.
Antidepressants are too readily prescribed.
The US is the world leader.
These two facts are relevant and not about me personally. They can't be simply dismissed.
Oh yeah definitely. I always knew I had it, I've had it my whole life. You try being a suicidal 7-year-old and see how well you like it. I didn't start getting better until my 30s.
Big same fellow person. Lookin forward to seeing you in the wellness camps, and looking forward to the hell we're going to raise.
You have my sympathy.
But I'm sure many lemmings reading this recognize the second "lazy doctor" scenario.
You realize you're doing the "lazy doctor" routine right now, right?
You already decided on an answer and when confronted with a discrepancy, you decided that your understanding is correct and this specific situation is the outlier.
That's the exact same thought process you're complaining about.
Not really.
I'm diagnosing a problem but my solution is to investigate more, not to sweep unknowns under the antidepressant carpet.
You aren't a doctor. Stop acting like one, and stop assuming you know all doctor's motives. SSRIs are an important tool and make many peoples lives tolerable. No one's making you or anyone take anything.
I'm not seeing patients or providing medical advice. Typing on lemmy is nothing like acting like a doctor.
Agreed.
Also prozac and other drugs are prescribed for "stress related" symptoms when doctors can't find the root cause and when patients demand a pharmaceutical solution.
You're spouting unsubstantiated bullshit because you think you're special and that your opinion is worth shit, somehow more than that of medical professionals and scientists.
I'm sick of these fucking conspiracy theorest trolls.
Kindly shut the fuck up and go away.
Conspiracy? I've experience it. And it's not just me
https://time.com/7208914/symptoms-doctors-dismiss-anxiety/
https://www.northwell.edu/katz-institute-for-womens-health/articles/gaslighting-in-womens-health
again, fibro is frequently treated with antidepressants. this is not (just) laziness. read your insurance policy on meds and i bet you'll find they won't let you proceed with diagnosis for anything else until you've been on an SSRI for 6 months. Idiopathic pain, somatoform disorder, etc. allllllll have to be ruled out. It's not (just) because you're female, but is IS CERTAINLY because you're American.
Don't you consider such unscientific bureaucratic rulings as being part of the problem?
Take a step back and think for a bit.
Where did you get your medical degree from again?
https://www.northwell.edu/katz-institute-for-womens-health/articles/gaslighting-in-womens-health
The down votes are from people who were diagnosed with "stress" and are now addicted to anti depressants.
The downvotes are from people who think your statements are ignorant lol
The down votes are from the victims of a medical industry that doesn't allow doctors to say "I don't know".
You have no place diagnosing people with no proven experience in the field of psychiatry, or pharmacology.
So stop parroting RFK talking points.
OK, I have no idea about the medical history of whoever is down voting. But it's clear from the numbers that people are scared of their pills being taken away.
The only time I've had a similar reaction was when I suggested coffee should be banned. (It's bad for the environment, more physically addictive than heroin and makes everyone's breath smell terribly)
Again, you have proven that you have no experience in psychology, or pharmacology, so stop with the RFK rhetoric.
You’re not qualified to disagree with science and people with PhDs. Stop embarrassing yourself.
There are too many lazy, bribed doctors prescribing too many antidepressants.
11% of Americans over the age of 12 take an antidepressant.
You have provided no counter argument, but I would welcome one.
Because there is no counter-point to your RFK bullshit. It’s like arguing with bible salesmen.