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Three mental-health claims from RFK’s wellness movement: what scientists say

Source: NatureView Original
scienceMay 9, 2026

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US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has been critical of antidepressant drugs.Credit: Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty

Overdiagnosis, overmedication and withdrawal: that’s the bleak picture of US mental-health treatment painted at a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) wellness summit attended by US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the driving force behind the MAHA movement.

The summit, which was held on 4 May in Washington DC, focused on what the group argues is the widespread overuse of drugs to treat mental-health conditions. Some speakers described agonizing withdrawal symptoms when they tried to wean off antidepressants. Others attacked what they characterized as an overdiagnosis of mental-health disorders in children.

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