Antidepressants embrace a category of medication referred to as SSRIs. Prozac, Paxil, and Wellbutrin are a few of the model names of the medicines that hundreds of thousands of individuals take safely.

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Throughout his Senate confirmation hearing to function Well being and Human Providers Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. advised antidepressant medication could also be as addictive as heroin — a declare contradicted by analysis.

Kennedy’s remark at Wednesday’s listening to was one among quite a few controversial claims he has made about drugs and addiction.

Kennedy, 71, was a heroin consumer for greater than a decade in his youth, which he speaks about incessantly. He has been in restoration for 42 years he mentioned in his second affirmation listening to on Thursday.

Although he lacks medical coaching, he has been a critic of antidepressant drugs — a category of medication known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.

“I do know folks, together with members of my household, who’ve had a a lot worse time getting off of SSRIs than they’ve getting off of heroin,” Kennedy mentioned within the listening to.

A long time of analysis have proven SSRI use to be protected and efficient, whereas heroin is extremely addictive in virtually all customers.

“Antidepressants and heroin are in numerous universes with regards to dependancy threat,” says Keith Humphreys, who research dependancy at Stanford College. “In my 35 years Within the dependancy subject, I’ve met solely two or three individuals who thought they had been hooked on antidepressants versus 1000’s who had been hooked on heroin and different opioids.”

A examine printed within the medical journal the Lancet discovered vital withdrawal signs solely have an effect on about 1 in 35 individuals who use antidepressants. It is very important be in a physician’s care when going off SSRIs and to taper off step by step.

Kennedy has made previous statements about his strategy to restoration from dependancy, selling the idea of “therapeutic farms,” the place folks scuffling with dependancy would reside and work. Many who examine substance-use problems have expressed doubt about this strategy because it focuses on the ethical dimensions of restoration —- slightly than harnessing medical greatest practices.

In his testimony, Kennedy mentioned the dependancy therapy incorporating outside work needs to be accessible to folks with substance-use problems, however nobody needs to be compelled to go “kicking and screaming.”