WASHINGTON – Democratic Minnesota Senator Tina Smith questioned Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Junior over his past statements on antidepressants and school shooters during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing.
“There’s no time in American history or human history if kids were going to shoot schools and shooting their classmates. It really started happening coterminous with the introduction of these drugs, with Prozac and other drugs,” Kennedy said on the Club Random podcast with Bill Maher in 2023.
“Do you believe as you said that antidepressants cause school shootings?” Smith asked.
“I don’t think anybody can answer that question and I didn’t answer that question. I said it should be studied along with other potential culprits,” Kennedy answered.
The National Institutes of Health reviewed FBI information regarding school shooters from 2000 to 2017 and says “it appears that most school shooters were not previously treated with psychotropic medications and even when they were, no direct or causal association was found.”
A Swedish study in 2020 found “A systematic review of randomized controlled trials finds an almost three-fold increased odds of serious aggression outcomes in child and adolescent antidepressant users versus controls, and a slightly elevated, though non-significant, effect estimate in adults.”
