--- title: "The Government Is Preparing to Take Away Your SSRIs" description: "In the wake of the Catholic school shooting that killed two children and maimed several others, RFK Jr. is suggesting SSRIs are to blame." date: "2025-08-29" modified: "2025-08-29" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/government-take-away-ssris" categories: - "Brain" - "Health & Medicine" - "Mental Health" tags: - "antidepressants" - "fda" - "mass shootings" - "rfk jr" --- # The Government Is Preparing to Take Away Your SSRIs ![In the wake of the Catholic school shooting that killed two children and maimed several others, RFK Jr. is suggesting SSRIs are to blame.]() *\Image: Chip Somodevilla / Getty / Futurism\* Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the [well-heeled crackpot]() helming our nation's healthcare system, holds all kinds of screwball beliefs about pharmaceuticals — but his bizarre and incoherent opposition to depression-treating selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) is perhaps the most indefensible. Since at least 2023, when Kennedy first launched his long-shot presidential campaign, the conspiracy theorist has insisted there is some sort of link between SSRIs and school shootings. That summer, the political scion told Elon Musk during a [livestreamed discussion]() on X-formerly-Twitter that although there are no studies on the matter, "there’s a tremendous circumstantial evidence \[that\] SSRIs and benzos and other drugs" are causing such violent events. Last July, as it became clear that Donald Trump was about to again become the GOP's presidential nominee, Kennedy made an even wilder suggestion: that people on psychiatric medications like SSRIs and Adderall should be sent to taxpayer-funded "[wellness farms]()" — which sound a lot like labor camps — to dry out. Fast-forward to February 2025, when Kennedy, after being sworn in as Trump's secretary of Health and Human Services, [vowed to investigate]() that illusory link between antidepressants and school shootings — which has, contrary to his claim that there's no research on the topic, been all but disproven since 2019, when a [study in the *Behavioral Sciences and the Law* journal]() found that most school shooters had no known history of taking psychiatric meds, and those who did showed "no direct or causal association" between the drugs and their acts of violence. In the wake of yet another violent and senseless tragedy — this one at a Catholic church in Minneapolis, where a mass shooter [murdered two children]() during their first week of school and injured 17 other people — the [brainwormed]() health secretary is once again touting his nonsensical theory about SSRIs. "We're 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," Kennedy [told ]()*[Fox News]().* As if responding to this tragedy — which the advocacy group [Everytown for Gun Safety marks]() at at least the 57th school shooting in 2025 alone — with a wild goose chase weren't [insulting]() enough, it appears that vice president JD Vance might be cosigning it. "We really do have, I think, a mental health crisis in the United States of America," the millennial VP said during a Wisconsin event after the Minnesota shooting, [per *NBC*](). "We take way more psychiatric medication than any other nation on Earth, and I think it’s time for us to start asking some very hard questions about the root causes of this violence." While Vance's statement wasn't a direct endorsement of Kennedy's SSRI obsession, it certainly seems related. Conveniently, the VP's allusion to medication being a potential "root cause" of such violence also serves as a compelling distraction for the GOP electorate, which choose to elect [pro-gun candidates]() and ignore how those policies [lead to mass shootings](), instead [chasing strawmen]() every time another of these tragedies occurs. **More on RFK Jr:** [*RFK Jr. Cancels Promising Work on Cancer Vaccine*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()