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By Hannah Parry
Associate News Editor
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has announced a new National Institutes of Health study to determine if there is any connection between psychiatric drugs and violence, in the wake of another school shooting.
Kennedy announced the new study on Thursday, one day after Robin Westman, 23, opened fire at Annunciation Catholic School, killing two young children and injuring several more, before taking their own life.
Westman described their battle with mental health and suicidal thoughts in their manifesto. It is not clear whether they were on any psychiatric medication.
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Why it Matters
Kennedy has repeatedly tied SSRIs to the rising number of school mass shootings across the U.S. In 2024, he appeared on Bill Maher's podcast, where he claimed that kids had always had access to guns, but they had only begun "shooting their classmates" with "the introduction of these drugs, with Prozac and the other drugs."
When questioned on his stance by Democratic Senator Tina Smith during his confirmation hearing, Kennedy doubled down, saying that antidepressants should be studied "along with other potential culprits" such as social media.
The health secretary is not alone in looking to blame mental health issues after mass shootings, often in lieu of gun control discussions. In the wake of the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, Texas Governor Greg Abbott described the massacre as being tied to "a problem with mental health illness" in the community, despite noting that the shooter had no documented mental health history.
What To Know
Kennedy told Fox News, "At NIH, 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."
An investigation into the risks and effects of antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and other psychiatric medications was one of the key mandates for the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) commission when it was established by President Donald Trump by executive order in February. The commission was tasked to "assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), antipsychotics (and) mood stabilizers."
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Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccines and the medical industry, even suggested during his confirmation hearing that antidepressants could be more addictive than heroin, saying: "I know people, including members of my family, who've had a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than they have getting off of heroin."
The mandate and Kennedy's comments have sparked concerns among medical professionals, officials, and advocacy groups who have warned that the investigation into psychiatric drugs risks distracting from policy conversations about firearms, school safety, and mental-health care.
Multiple public-health researchers and clinicians have added that prior studies did not establish a causal link between SSRI use and mass shootings. Meanwhile, most mass shooters do not appear to have documented antidepressant prescriptions.
There are still multiple risks associated with antidepressants, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) previously issuing a "black box" warning for SSRIs, warning that they could "increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children and adolescents with MDD and other psychiatric disorders."
While the medical community acknowledges there are risks associated with antidepressants, the FDA has approved various medications for cases where the benefits are believed to outweigh the risks.
What Are SSRIs?
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are a common type of antidepressant that increases serotonin levels in the brain by blocking its reabsorption into nerve cells. This helps improve communication between brain cells and can stabilize mood, making SSRIs effective for treating conditions like depression, anxiety, panic disorder, OCD, PTSD, and social anxiety. They are often preferred over older antidepressants because they are generally safer and better tolerated, though they usually take a few weeks to show noticeable benefits.
Like all medications, SSRIs can cause side effects such as nausea, headaches, sleep disturbances, sexual difficulties, and sometimes emotional "blunting." Most side effects ease over time, but stopping suddenly can lead to withdrawal symptoms. Rare risks include serotonin syndrome if combined with certain drugs, and in people under 25, an increased risk of suicidal thoughts early in treatment. Overall, SSRIs are effective, widely used, and considered a first-line treatment for many mood and anxiety disorders when managed carefully by a doctor.
What People Are Saying
Senator Tina Smith said in a statement on Thursday: "I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don't kill kids, antidepressants do. Just shut up. Stop peddling bullshit. You should be fired."
Kennedy said on Fox News: "You know, many [psychiatric drugs] have black box warnings that warn of suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation. We can't exclude those as a culprit, and those are the kind of studies that we're doing."
Dr. Ragy Girgis, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, told USA TODAY: "SSRIs, and psych meds in general, are not responsible for mass shootings or violence in any way. These psych meds have specific anti-violence properties."
Governor Abbott said, after the Uvalde shooting, "Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge. Period. We as a government need to find a way to target that mental health challenge and to do something about it."
What Happens Next
Kennedy's direction that NIH study psychiatric drugs could prompt formal research proposals, funding decisions, and peer-reviewed investigations; a process that could take months to years.
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