Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made skepticism toward antidepressants, particularly for adolescents, a centerpiece of his public health agenda, claiming without evidence that the drugs may be harder to quit than heroin. Kennedy has also speciously linked antidepressants to violent behavior, raising alarms among mental health researchers who point to a troubling historical precedent.
In 2003 and 2004, the FDA issued health advisories warning that children and adolescents taking antidepressants faced increased risk of suicidal ideation and behavior. In October 2004, the FDA required black box warnings on all antidepressant labels. These warnings, despite being based on contested evidence and never measuring completed suicides, received widespread media amplification. Newspapers ran headlines like “FDA links drugs to being suicidal” and “FDA confirms antidepressants raise children’s suicide risk.”
The consequences were devastating. Rates of depression diagnosis, care, and antidepressant use all plummeted, while youth suicide attempts and deaths rose. “Rigorous studies of American adolescents consistently and conclusively show that the black box warnings resulted in dangerous declines in doctor visits and depression diagnosis by about a third,” according to researchers Stephen B. Soumerai and Christine Y. Lu, both faculty members at Harvard and the University of Sydney.
Kennedy’s antidepressant rhetoric is not only based on flawed science; it risks repeating this history. “Kennedy’s willfully uninformed rhetoric on antidepressants is going to cost lives,” the researchers warn. Adolescent depression, anxiety, and suicide rates are at record highs. If Kennedy’s views shape FDA policy through new black box warnings, millions of vulnerable patients could lose access to essential treatment, even if those medications technically remain available.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.statnews.com/2026/01/07/rfk-jr-antidepressants-teenagers-warnings/