Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the wake of the Minneapolis school shooting that his agency would study whether antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs “might be contributing to violence,” prompting a Minnesota senator to accuse him of “peddling bulls—.”
Kennedy, in a Fox News interview, said HHS is looking at a group of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and “some of the other psychiatric drugs.” The Health secretary has long raised concerns about SSRIs and linked them to school shootings.
A 2019 study found most school shooters don’t appear to have been prescribed psychotropic drugs and “when they were, no direct or causal association was found.”
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minnesota, said Kennedy is focused on the wrong issue.
“I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don’t kill kids, antidepressants do,” Smith wrote on social media. “Just shut up. Stop peddling bulls—. You should be fired.”
Police say Robin Westman, 23, opened fire at Annunciation Catholic School, killing two children and injuring 18 people. Westman wrote in a journal about suffering from depression and having suicidal and homicidal thoughts, according to media reports. It’s unclear if Westman was taking any psychiatric drugs.
“We need to explain why all this violence is happening and we need to look at every possibility,” Kennedy said on Fox.
Democrats, in the wake of yet another shooting, are raising concerns about access to guns.
“There are 400 million guns in this country,” Smith wrote on social media. “More guns than people. In America, we are ten times more likely to be shot in a school or playground than any other developed nation.”
Kennedy said during an Aug. 28 news conference in Texas that “people have had guns in this country forever.”
“Something changed, and it dramatically changed human behavior, and one of the culprits we need to examine is whether the fact that we are the most over-medicated nation in the world,” he added.
Some conservatives have also focused on Westman’s gender identity.
Westman’s name was legally changed to Robin because “minor child identifies as female,” a judge wrote, according to media reports. Kennedy’s Fox News comments were prompted by questions about Westman’s transition process from male to female.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a news conference that “anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.”
Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic whose views on several health matters are considered fringe by mainstream experts. His tenure as the nation’s top health official has been tumultuous. He has sought to oust Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez amid a policy disagreement, but she is refusing to step down.
Monarez’s contested ouster, less than one month after the Senate confirmed her to the role, prompted the resignations of three other top CDC officials in protest of Kennedy’s leadership, including his direction on vaccines.
