Psychiatrists push back as Kennedy targets depression medications

Patients could be the first to pay the price if warnings about depression drugs turn into fear of psychiatric care. At the American Psychiatric Association’s 2026 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, psychiatrists said Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to rein in psychiatric medications risked sending people the wrong message at a moment when depression remains common, treatment access is uneven and many Americans already struggle to get help.

The flashpoint came just days before the meeting, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a psychiatric overprescribing action plan at a Make America Healthy Again Institute summit on mental health and overmedicalization. HHS said the plan would promote appropriate psychiatric prescribing and deprescribing when clinically indicated, with an emphasis on informed consent, shared decision-making, training, clinical guidance and changes to insurance billing. Kennedy said the effort was aimed especially at children. HHS’s own guidance also said psychiatric medications can play an important, and at times essential, role in treatment.

That framing drew swift pushback from psychiatry leaders gathered for the meeting, which APA said brought together more than 9,000 psychiatrists and professionals for more than 400 scientific sessions over 4.5 days. Dr. Theresa Miskimen Rivera, the association’s president, said Kennedy’s view oversimplified the problem and ignored workforce shortages, limited psychiatric beds, inadequate visit time, barriers to psychotherapy and social support, and weak integration of psychiatric expertise in primary care. APA said it supports more research, better provider training and quality improvements in evidence-based mental health care, but warned that reducing the crisis to overmedicalization alone misses the bigger picture.

The concern is not abstract. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in April 2025 that depression affected 13.1% of adolescents and adults age 12 and older during August 2021 through August 2023, a 60% increase over the prior decade. The agency also said 11.4% of U.S. adults took prescription medication for depression in 2023, with women at 15.3% more than twice the rate of men, 7.4%. For many families, that means antidepressants are already part of everyday care, not a fringe issue.

A 2026 BMJ Mental Health study of 30,810 adults across all 50 states found antidepressants remain among the most prescribed medications in the United States and examined public attitudes toward possible federal restrictions. The broader debate has sharpened because Kennedy has long argued that psychiatric drugs are overprescribed and has previously made unproven claims linking them to mass shootings and gun violence. Psychiatrists say the real danger is that patients who hear broad warnings may avoid treatment altogether instead of getting carefully monitored care.