The Tucker Carlson Show - SSRIs and School Shootings, FDA Corruption, and Why Everyone on Anti-Depressants Is Totally Unhappy

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00:00:38.920 I think this is one of those topics that if people understood the scale of the problem and the severity that we would be talking about this every day, along with, you know, immigration and foreign policy, this is, in my view, one of the most important things going on right now.

00:00:56.060 So, give us a sense of how widespread the use of, let's just start with SSRIs, antidepressants.

00:01:02.720 How widespread is their use in the United States?

00:01:06.140 About 14% of the population.

00:01:08.540 Total population.

00:01:09.280 Of the total population is currently taking an antidepressant medication.

00:01:13.800 Currently?

00:01:14.400 Currently, yes.

00:01:15.520 Yeah.

00:01:15.660 And that's actually as of 2014.

00:01:18.460 The numbers have gone up since COVID.

00:01:21.100 So, I would say it's probably between 15% to 20% of the population.

00:01:26.740 Who's currently on those drugs?

00:01:28.500 Are taking antidepressants on a daily basis.

00:01:30.560 So, that's, I mean, compared to my childhood or even 25 years ago, that's a massive increase.

00:01:57.640 It's an enormous increase.

00:01:59.500 It's likely, you know, last statistics I looked at, I think it's about a 500% increase from where things were in the 90s, in the early 90s.

00:02:09.060 Has America's collective mental health improved?

00:02:12.800 No, there's actually more suicides.

00:02:14.820 There's more disability from mental health problems and teen suicide is higher as well.

00:02:20.220 Okay.

00:02:21.160 So, if there's been a 500% thereabouts increase in the use of these drugs, but more people are killing themselves and the drugs are prescribed in order to make you not kill yourself, then that suggests that, like, we're getting the opposite of the intended effect?

00:02:38.920 Yeah, yeah, yeah, big time.

00:02:42.020 Where, you know, there's more psychiatric prescribers now, there's more drug, you know, drug prescribing, and the outcomes are actually getting worse.

00:02:49.920 It's what we're doing is not working on a national level.

00:02:52.960 Well, I'm just going to skip ahead to my opinion, then I'm going to pull back, but that suggests that we should ban the drugs and imprison the people selling them.

00:02:59.560 That's my personal view.

00:03:02.400 But, you know, you're the psychiatrist.

00:03:04.100 So, what effect, and I will try to reduce my emotional outburst just to that, but it's so shocking when you know the details.

00:03:19.000 Where do these drugs come from?

00:03:20.780 What are they exactly?

00:03:21.880 What is an SSRI?

00:03:23.060 Who invented them?

00:03:24.300 What do they do?

00:03:24.840 So, I mean, SSRIs are kind of the latest iteration of antidepressants.

00:03:34.640 They've been out since the 50s, but Prozac really changed history when it came out in 1987.

00:03:40.940 So, this was a drug that was designed to modulate the serotonin system.

00:03:47.260 This is by blocking serotonin reuptake.

00:03:50.240 And so, what that does is it increases the amount of serotonin between the neurons, and it actually has a drug effect.

00:03:57.820 It will make people numb or emotionally constricted.

00:04:02.060 And so, that's how those drugs are working.

00:04:06.060 I remember the rollout for Prozac.

00:04:10.200 I think it was on the cover of Time or Newsweek or one of the then popular newsweeklies in the United States,

00:04:15.540 and it was hailed as a wonder drug that was going to fix America's psychiatric problems.

00:04:23.200 And it didn't.

00:04:24.720 But it was also described as a drug that helped, as I recall, that helped regulate, and I'm quoting, chemical imbalances in the brain.

00:04:32.920 It was not described as something that would numb you.

00:04:34.580 Yeah, it's essentially just a story that was sold.

00:04:42.800 The chemical imbalance myth was a story that was sold to doctors and patients to make them feel better about taking drugs for their mood.

00:04:50.860 Because I think intuitively, many people, you know, when you say, hey, you know, I'm unhappy, I'm anxious, I'm depressed.

00:04:57.460 If you went to that person and said, hey, do you want to take a drug that's going to mask those symptoms?

00:05:03.540 Intuitively, people would say, no, you know, I'd rather get to the root cause of that.

00:05:08.320 You know, sweeping things under the rug usually doesn't work that well.

00:05:12.320 Yes.

00:05:12.580 But when you craft a narrative about these drugs, fixing a chemical imbalance, like, say, like a type 1 diabetic who doesn't have enough insulin, you give them insulin, and it kind of sort of like a magic bullet kind of injects itself like right into that, you know, pathological process and fixes it.

00:05:33.500 And that's kind of a different message.

00:05:35.500 The message to the person is that your brain is defective, there's something wrong with it, and we're going to give you this chemical to bring things up to normal.

00:05:43.100 Yes.

00:05:43.380 That's a lot easier for someone to say, well, actually, I need my medicine because I'm broken.

00:05:50.040 But that was essentially a lie.

00:05:53.220 The idea that these drugs, you know, fixed a chemical imbalance simply came from observations that when you give people serotonergic drugs, they can become calmer, they can look less depressed.

00:06:07.100 And so rather than the obvious explanation being, okay, this is a drug effect that we're seeing, you know, they are drugged, and that's what we're looking at, people said, well, maybe they just had low serotonin, and now they're looking better because we've fixed this chemical imbalance.

00:06:21.240 And so that message has just been grabbed by pharmaceutical industry and, you know, psychiatrists to essentially lull people into this state where they feel more comfortable taking them.

00:06:35.980 It changed, among other things, the practice of psychiatry completely.

00:06:40.760 And I remember this just because I grew up in an affluent area where people use psychiatrists, not in my family, but everyone else's family.

00:06:47.600 And the idea, it was Freudian psychiatry, and the idea was we are going to treat the root causes.

00:06:54.680 Now, whatever you think of Freudian psychiatry or Freud or whatever, but, you know, you'd sit on a couch and talk about your childhood.

00:07:00.480 Like that would, by addressing the root cause of your problems, you would make it better.

00:07:06.540 That was the promise of it, whether it worked or not.

00:07:08.480 And then it felt like in one day, right around the time Prozac came out, Freud was being denounced everywhere as a sexist.

00:07:17.400 And Freudian psychiatry became not just sort of passe, but like affirmatively unpopular.

00:07:24.440 And the role of psychiatrists was to dispense these drugs.

00:07:28.860 From an outsider's perspective, that's what I noticed at the time.

00:07:31.600 That is what happened.

00:07:33.580 And I think what was going on was all of a sudden you had a billion-dollar war chest of marketing spend that was trying to seize control of the narrative about medications.

00:07:46.220 And so, I mean, Prozac was like a blockbuster.

00:07:50.460 Some people may not remember this, but that was the drug that made Eli Lilly a billion-dollar company.

00:07:55.900 I mean, it was a small company before then.

00:07:57.980 And so, at every single level, there was an incentive to change how people thought about distress.

00:08:05.640 You know, no longer was depression and anxiety a complex thing where, you know, there could be relationship issues and problems at work and, you know, problems in your childhood.

00:08:16.080 All of that stuff was, now it was almost bigoted in a way to talk about depression and anxiety as if it had these intuitive social and societal like causes.

00:08:30.340 It was now a medical condition.

00:08:32.580 And if you were going to say that it wasn't a medical condition, you weren't taking it seriously and you were stigmatizing people.

00:08:38.280 So, drug companies, they would platform, I guess, through their influence with the universities and the media, they were able to push out this narrative.

00:08:50.080 And so, they could shoot down Freudian analysis and therapy.

00:08:54.180 And so, the message essentially came out that was, this is a chemical imbalance.

00:08:58.260 These are medical conditions.

00:08:59.660 And if you say anything otherwise, you're stigmatizing the mentally ill.

00:09:04.840 But couldn't, I mean, it doesn't, that's obviously what happened.

00:09:09.280 I saw it happen.

00:09:10.240 But it doesn't really make internal sense.

00:09:13.100 Like, you could say, you know, I think you're depressed because all your relationships are dysfunctional or your parents are horrible or whatever.

00:09:21.800 You're failing at work.

00:09:23.360 Those are all common causes of sadness for sure.

00:09:26.680 However, without dismissing or stigmatizing the person or his problems, like, you are taking it seriously.

00:09:33.680 You're just trying to find the actual cause of the problems, right?

00:09:37.620 I mean, absolutely.

00:09:39.320 I mean, I think to logical people that makes sense.

00:09:42.140 But the way that played out in public spaces and in medical schools was that that was actually a very backwards and kind of, you know, dismissive thing to, you know, people would say things like, you know, depression just isn't normal.

00:09:57.680 You know, it's a serious biological problem.

00:10:00.860 And so to suggest that, you know, this is just some, you know, life issues going on, relationship issues, you were kind of branded as someone who really, you just didn't get it.

00:10:10.640 You didn't understand, you know, the medical underpinnings of this new disease that was gripping the country and kind of evolving and making people suffer.

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00:13:59.980 Did the people making these claims understand the medical basis of this illness they were

00:14:04.400 describing?

00:14:07.000 No.

00:14:07.820 I mean, that's the irony, right?

00:14:10.740 So, for example, they say it's a chemical imbalance.

00:14:13.960 Did anyone ever describe what balance is?

00:14:15.860 So, I mean, the thing, this is like a white lie that people sort of rationalize to themselves.

00:14:24.820 Because, you know, people have looked at the chemical imbalance and there is a clear way

00:14:29.280 to do it.

00:14:29.740 You can look at the brains of depressed people on autopsy and you can actually, you know, look at

00:14:36.500 receptor levels and say, you know, is there any changes in the receptors?

00:14:40.720 You can stick needles into people's spine and you can draw out fluid and you can look at the

00:14:46.140 metabolites of things like serotonin and you can get depressed people and undepressed people and say,

00:14:50.880 is there any difference in the actual amount of serotonin floating around in the brain?

00:14:56.740 Every time they've done this, they have not found that there is any difference between depressed

00:15:01.900 and undepressed people.

00:15:04.200 But there's no difference?

00:15:05.160 There is no difference.

00:15:06.180 Because that's why we don't use any biological markers in the diagnosis of any psychiatric

00:15:12.680 conditions.

00:15:13.240 No brain scans, no blood tests.

00:15:15.780 We can do all of those things.

00:15:17.300 They're not useful because there are no ways, you know, like actual biological ways to differentiate

00:15:23.820 depressed people from undepressed people.

00:15:25.980 Are you serious?

00:15:27.220 Absolutely.

00:15:28.240 Yeah.

00:15:29.460 Okay.

00:15:30.060 So, well, that's not a white lie then. 0.58

00:15:33.040 That's like a massive whopper.

00:15:34.820 If you're telling me there's a biological basis for anything, but you can't show it, then you're

00:15:42.240 lying.

00:15:42.920 Yeah.

00:15:43.680 Or guessing at best.

00:15:45.300 And the way they justify it was, well, okay, so we haven't found it yet, but it must be a

00:15:51.460 medical problem and we're eventually going to find it.

00:15:54.080 And rather than admitting that, in the meantime, we'll just tell people it's a chemical imbalance

00:15:58.440 because it's an easy, it's just an easy kind of like metaphor for them to understand.

00:16:03.440 And it helps us dish out the drugs without people asking too many questions.

00:16:08.620 But it's untrue.

00:16:09.700 It's untrue.

00:16:10.140 Therefore, physicians should not say that or they should lose their medical license.

00:16:14.420 They shouldn't have been saying it.

00:16:17.280 But I thought, I mean, like strict adherence to reality, honesty, I thought that was like a

00:16:24.060 prerequisite for practicing medicine, getting a license.

00:16:26.300 Yeah.

00:16:27.660 Well, what's happened in the space of psychiatry is almost like our field has become so overrun

00:16:39.380 with pharmaceutical propaganda that it's not really an issue of truth in a lot of places.

00:16:47.680 It's like a moral issue.

00:16:49.500 Doctors feel the need to almost encourage people to take these medications and cheerlead them

00:16:55.120 onto it.

00:16:55.860 It has been sort of cast as a issue where it's like, you know, people, these medications

00:17:02.380 are heavily stigmatized.

00:17:04.040 You know, there's a bunch of like rednecks running around telling people to pull themselves 1.00

00:17:07.180 up by their bootstraps.

00:17:08.860 You know, that's like the boogeyman that's cast out there.

00:17:12.180 Seriously?

00:17:12.860 Yeah.

00:17:13.140 Yeah.

00:17:13.380 And so, yeah, that people are like, you know, there's a lot-

00:17:16.840 That there are rednecks out there. 1.00

00:17:17.920 Yeah. 0.67

00:17:18.120 There are rednecks out there stigmatizing the mentally ill saying, you know, your suffering isn't

00:17:22.940 real.

00:17:23.420 And so, we need to, you know, we need to kind of peddle this narrative about there being

00:17:28.760 a chemical imbalance and encourage people to take these medications because mean society

00:17:34.460 out there is telling people to just sit there and suffer in silence and to not take the drugs.

00:17:38.840 And so, doctors see it as like almost a, this is what medical school was like for me in residency.

00:17:46.140 It's like, you don't question the drugs.

00:17:48.480 Don't question the side effects.

00:17:49.740 You need to encourage, you need to encourage people to take them.

00:17:53.660 So, it's hinged away from truth and it has become more of this moral issue.

00:17:59.760 At least that's how-

00:18:00.800 Sounds like a religion.

00:18:01.500 Yeah, I mean, that's what decades of drug company propaganda has done to kind of shape

00:18:06.280 the narrative about how doctors and patients in the media view this issue.

00:18:11.420 So, you go to med school, you decide to become a psychiatrist, you spent, you know, good residency,

00:18:18.660 all stuff.

00:18:19.020 Did anybody during the whole course of that program note that as the prescription rate for

00:18:27.040 these drugs has risen, so is the suicide rate?

00:18:30.540 No, no, not at all.

00:18:32.220 Yeah.

00:18:32.380 They don't notice that?

00:18:34.140 They don't bring that up at all.

00:18:36.640 Isn't the whole like point of medicine noticing the connection between behavior and outcome?

00:18:43.680 Yeah, yeah.

00:18:44.380 Like people who smoke a ton of unfiltered cigarettes get a higher rate of lung cancer than those

00:18:47.700 who don't.

00:18:48.240 So, that's like, that's why we know smoking is bad.

00:18:50.340 Yeah.

00:18:50.540 You know, you just get a version where it's like, yes, you know, mental health is getting worse,

00:18:56.060 but instead of them saying, well, it's because our treatments don't work, what they will say

00:19:02.200 is that, you know, the depression is rising, this is a serious medical condition, you know,

00:19:08.800 it's occurring more and more, and us and our drugs, we are stemming the tide.

00:19:14.020 If not for us doing this, this would be overflowing and getting out of control.

00:19:18.360 And so, rather than actually reflecting on the fact that things aren't getting better,

00:19:22.560 they are just saying that, you know, this depression, you know, which didn't really

00:19:27.180 happen that much before, it's just happening more and more and more.

00:19:30.520 And so, that's how they justify the worst outcomes.

00:19:32.880 I get it.

00:19:33.720 I mean, they're children, obviously.

00:19:35.520 It's just, you're freaking me out here because these are like just kind of basic logical questions.

00:19:40.400 And the first one is, if depression is rising, and it sounds like it is, why?

00:19:45.200 Why is this happening?

00:19:46.660 Yeah.

00:19:46.800 Does anyone ever ask that?

00:19:50.940 Did you hear anyone ask that?

00:19:53.100 You know, and people do ask this question, and I think it's, you know, it's multi, and it's

00:20:01.740 multifactorial.

00:20:02.980 You know, from my vantage point, depression is rising because our treatments don't work,

00:20:08.860 and they may actually make people worse.

00:20:11.280 But then there's also very legitimate things going on in society that makes depression rise.

00:20:16.380 You know, housing is unaffordable.

00:20:18.820 I agree.

00:20:19.140 There are real things going on that are also making people unhappy.

00:20:22.540 Society is getting crappier and more dysfunctional.

00:20:24.860 Yes.

00:20:24.880 That makes people sad.

00:20:25.920 I get it.

00:20:26.660 Mm-hmm.

00:20:28.200 But it just seems like if you're treating an illness, the first question you would ask

00:20:34.360 is like, where did this illness come from?

00:20:37.300 Yeah.

00:20:38.560 Yeah.

00:20:39.120 No?

00:20:39.340 Well, you would be shocked if you could be a fly on the wall in what happens during like

00:20:47.560 psychiatric interviews, because this is what happened.

00:20:51.160 This is what I observed.

00:20:52.500 So I came out of medical school really excited to do psychiatry.

00:20:57.340 You know, I was like, I'm going to help people with depression and anxiety.

00:20:59.880 I've always been someone who's been really interested in self-help and, you know, philosophy.

00:21:05.080 Yes.

00:21:05.560 And then I get started.

00:21:07.940 And during my internship, what I see is that we spend hardly any time actually understanding

00:21:16.000 our patients.

00:21:17.520 The interaction is extremely transactional.

00:21:19.820 You might spend 40 minutes during an intake with someone, but you're hardly going to understand

00:21:25.800 their relationships.

00:21:26.780 You're hardly going to understand their work life.

00:21:28.800 If there's very limited time to know what's going on with them health-wise and whether

00:21:33.460 they're using any substances, the visit, it's almost like a checklist.

00:21:39.580 And what I was witnessing is we weren't spending any time really trying to actually understand

00:21:45.280 the people and their lives.

00:21:48.240 And we would just default to using medications because it was really quick.

00:21:52.740 And the way we justify doing this is that we have this book, it's called The DSM, and

00:21:57.940 you can diagnose people essentially off a checklist.

00:22:00.920 You know, if you have five out of nine symptoms, you can say that person is depressed.

00:22:05.680 And so you just ask them what symptoms they have.

00:22:07.520 You don't have to understand the complexity of their life.

00:22:10.260 And then you say, okay, you've got major depressive disorder and we've got this FDA approved treatment

00:22:15.420 over here.

00:22:15.860 We have this drug that's safe and effective and it allows you to be kind of like medically

00:22:20.780 justified and having these very transactional visits and just like putting people on meds

00:22:25.640 and it just churns them through the system.

00:22:29.380 And so...

00:22:30.860 Doesn't it sound like there's a lot of concern for the patient?

00:22:32.880 Well, the way doctors are trained nowadays is to view these issues as medical issues.

00:22:47.400 So why be concerned about their life if the person is just suffering from a brain illness

00:22:51.860 and you've just diagnosed it with this checklist of symptoms and there's an FDA approved treatment.

00:22:57.340 You think that you are caring for the person and doing the justified thing.

00:23:00.720 But what does it say about the way these physicians feel about human beings if they sincerely believe

00:23:08.860 that something as complex as a human emotion has a purely organic origin that they can't

00:23:15.100 define, by the way?

00:23:16.240 I mean, none of this makes any sense at all.

00:23:17.980 Yeah.

00:23:18.700 If there's no difference between the brain of a depressed person and a happy person, then

00:23:25.200 you can't really say there's a known biological cause for depression.

00:23:29.240 You just can't say that because you can't show it.

00:23:32.080 But even bigger picture, like just being a human being, you know that all of this is

00:23:37.840 just wildly complex and there are libraries full of novels written about human emotions,

00:23:43.660 human experience, relationships.

00:23:45.400 It's like if you've gotten to a place where you're just like, well, you need an adjustment

00:23:49.700 of your serotonin levels, you're not treating people like human beings, right?

00:23:55.340 No.

00:23:55.780 Yeah.

00:23:55.980 I mean, you have a very reductionalistic view of people.

00:24:00.860 Of people.

00:24:01.440 Yeah.

00:24:02.420 And I think it's very sad.

00:24:07.560 And scary.

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00:28:31.140 So tell us, like, okay, so you're excited to become a shrink, a psychiatrist?

00:28:36.240 Mm-hmm.

00:28:36.500 Um, sounds like for all the right reasons.

00:28:38.740 You want to make people better, happier, more fulfilled, add purpose, all the good things.

00:28:44.560 And then you wind up on this podcast with a totally different view of how your profession

00:28:51.800 is helping or not.

00:28:53.020 How did you get there?

00:28:56.300 Well, what I started to notice in my intern year was that it just, it does not work.

00:29:06.820 And I mean, this is the heart of it.

00:29:08.420 You put people on these medications without understanding why they're unhappy, you know?

00:29:14.240 And so firstly, it's like, how could you expect to fix someone if you don't understand why they're

00:29:18.380 unhappy?

00:29:18.900 Exactly.

00:29:19.920 And then so putting that issue aside, like maybe we're just okay with like drugging people,

00:29:24.540 you know, that they have unhappy, you know, that they're unhappy and we put them on medications.

00:29:28.940 Maybe that's okay.

00:29:30.280 Although I don't agree with that.

00:29:31.660 Um, the drugs, they just wear off over time.

00:29:35.700 You know, you put some, you put someone on five of Lexapro, you know, a starting dose.

00:29:40.500 Six months later, the effect has usually worn off and they need a higher dose.

00:29:44.920 You know, 12 months after that, they need a higher dose.

00:29:47.180 And eventually they're maxed out on it.

00:29:49.120 And the person will say to you, I don't even know what this drug is doing anymore.

00:29:54.120 Um, or it's hardly doing anything.

00:29:56.260 And so at that point, they ended up getting put on more and more medications.

00:30:00.760 And eventually you have people on five meds and the drugs aren't really working.

00:30:06.140 And so I would see this pattern where, you know, you put someone on a drug, you get this

00:30:10.860 honeymoon period where, you know, and they work, you know, this isn't a placebo thing.

00:30:16.160 Like these, these drugs, they, they turn down your emotional range.

00:30:21.100 They are numbing.

00:30:21.800 And if you're someone who's seriously anxious, you will experience that as therapeutic,

00:30:26.280 maybe even life-saving.

00:30:27.780 Instant relief.

00:30:28.960 Yeah.

00:30:29.160 Well, sometimes a couple of weeks, but practically instant.

00:30:31.860 Well, for benzodiazepines, it's like instant relief.

00:30:34.480 Yeah.

00:30:34.920 Yeah.

00:30:35.160 For benzos, instant.

00:30:36.520 For SSRIs, usually a couple of weeks.

00:30:39.360 And so people, they, you know, they'll get this experience where they'll say, you know,

00:30:43.320 this drug has saved my life.

00:30:44.560 You know, I'm more functional.

00:30:46.540 Yeah.

00:30:46.840 During the honeymoon period where, where your body hasn't adapted to it because our bodies,

00:30:52.660 they just adapt to the drugs over time.

00:30:54.300 And so I would just see them wear off and the people would start accumulating more and more drugs.

00:30:59.000 And then they would get slowly sicker.

00:31:03.140 And I'm thinking to myself.

00:31:05.200 Sicker by which you mean what? 0.99

00:31:06.520 Like mentally sicker. 0.99

00:31:07.680 You know, more fatigues, more brain fog, more depression and anxiety over time.

00:31:11.680 And I saw that a lot.

00:31:12.520 Lots of my patients were not getting better on these regimens.

00:31:18.340 And so I would talk to my attendings and I would say, well, this doesn't really seem like a sustainable way to help people.

00:31:25.140 You know, putting them on drugs that they, that essentially wear off over time and they end up sort of stuck on and they look worse.

00:31:32.220 And they would tell me, you know, don't worry, Yosef, these drugs are safe and effective.

00:31:37.520 You know, they're approved by the FDA.

00:31:40.160 Do they actually use the phrase safe and effective?

00:31:41.800 Yeah, yeah.

00:31:42.640 They actually use that phrase?

00:31:43.740 They use that phrase, exactly.

00:31:45.340 These are safe and effective.

00:31:47.040 They are approved by the FDA.

00:31:49.800 Nothing to see here.

00:31:50.540 Don't worry about it.

00:31:51.300 Why would you, why would you be concerned about this?

00:31:53.300 The authorities have spoken.

00:31:56.300 Are these actual doctors?

00:31:58.080 Yeah, these are, these are professors.

00:31:59.600 They look at you right in the face and say, don't worry, Yosef, they're safe, they're safe and effective.

00:32:03.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:32:04.780 You're freaking me out.

00:32:05.960 Yeah, yeah.

00:32:06.620 And so I think I'm 26 at the time, but this does not sit right with me.

00:32:11.860 And I get, and so I decide that, you know, who am I?

00:32:16.460 I don't understand this research.

00:32:18.400 I'm going to become an expert in it.

00:32:20.520 And so after residency, I go and I work for Janssen, which is the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson.

00:32:27.980 And I get involved in clinical development there doing a fellowship so I could see how the pharmaceutical companies develop the drugs.

00:32:34.480 I stay there for a year and then eventually I go to the FDA and I become a medical officer in the division of psychiatry where I'm overseeing the safety of the drugs on the U.S. market.

00:32:45.400 And it was by going through that experience and actually seeing how these drugs were developed over time that I realized that we are practicing so far outside of what the evidence shows, like in an insane way.

00:33:00.300 Like outside of science?

00:33:01.700 Outside of science, yeah.

00:33:02.900 Like the whole idea that it makes sense to put someone on an SSRI for years at a time is not supported by the clinical research at all.

00:33:13.940 It's a complete like guinea pig, like, you know, it's an experiment.

00:33:20.460 It's an experiment happening on a mass scale.

00:33:22.960 Millions and millions of people.

00:33:24.620 Millions and millions of people, yeah.

00:33:26.240 So, you know, I said before, you know, about probably between, I mean, let's just call it 20%, you know, 15 to 20% of people are on these medications.

00:33:34.140 Half of the people that use antidepressants are on them for over five years.

00:33:38.180 And so, you know, maybe seven, you know, seven to 10% of Americans are essentially on an experiment where there's no clinical trial evidence that says that these drugs are safe.

00:33:51.140 You know, the scary thing is, you know, when my doctors used to say to me, these medications are safe and effective.

00:33:59.560 The thing that they would leave out was for the 12 weeks that they were studied in the clinical trial.

00:34:06.440 That's like, and then when you look at the research, there has never been a randomized control trial that has gone, that has looked at this over 12 months.

00:34:19.320 12 months, but you said there are millions, tens of millions of people on this for years.

00:34:23.120 Yeah, taking them for years.

00:34:24.500 And it is, and this is just insane because anyone who has their eyes open will see that these drugs clearly wear off over time.

00:34:33.180 I mean, that's why you have to keep on going up on the dose.

00:34:35.320 And so, it would be really important to actually see how effective these drugs are over time.

00:34:42.080 Well, why wouldn't they?

00:34:42.780 They have the sample.

00:34:44.140 It's right here.

00:34:44.760 It's in America.

00:34:45.320 There's a lot of people to choose from.

00:34:47.140 Yeah, they don't do it.

00:34:49.640 And a lot of this happens just because of precedent.

00:34:53.080 And there's a complete lack of backbone and leadership at the FDA to actually improve the way these drugs are studied.

00:35:01.080 What was it like?

00:35:01.640 You spent a year at the FDA.

00:35:02.860 Yeah.

00:35:03.040 What was that like?

00:35:03.940 Yeah, it was really concerning, to be honest.

00:35:06.560 Yeah.

00:35:07.540 When was that?

00:35:08.960 2020, 2019 to 2020.

00:35:11.480 Yeah.

00:35:12.060 Why was it concerning?

00:35:13.880 So, FDA receives a lot of funding from the pharmaceutical industry.

00:35:19.580 And I'll talk about a few things here.

00:35:23.100 So, I've always been interested in drug safety.

00:35:30.320 That's actually what I do now.

00:35:31.660 You know, I help people come off meds after they've had side effects.

00:35:34.400 So, that's always been my interest.

00:35:36.000 One of the issues is because the agency is funded by the pharmaceutical industry through PDUFA.

00:35:42.380 This is a congressional, like, you know, law.

00:35:45.480 I think they have like 70% funding.

00:35:48.060 What it does is it tilts the agency towards certain activities.

00:35:51.500 So, when pharma hands over money to the agency, they say, we're going to give you this money, but every time we give you an application for a drug, you need to review it within nine months because, you know, our patents are going to expire.

00:36:06.180 And so, you need to get it done in nine months.

00:36:08.640 Every time there's a protocol that comes in, you need to look at it within 30 days.

00:36:12.820 There's nothing, I think, on face, you know, that bad about it.

00:36:16.720 Hey, it makes sense.

00:36:17.640 There's commercial interest here and they want to get something.

00:36:20.460 But what it actually does at the reviewer level is that all of our resources go towards drug development activities.

00:36:27.860 And so, we're reviewing protocols for the drug companies rather than following up on safety issues.

00:36:33.440 So, there could be something like, you know, PSSD, which I'd like to talk about later on.

00:36:38.500 It's a serious sexual dysfunction problem.

00:36:40.540 All these different side effects going on that need reports and that need attention from medical reviewers.

00:36:47.380 Those were all just put on the back burner.

00:36:49.780 They were neglected because the way success in our division was measured was that we were just getting these things, you know, these activities done on time.

00:37:00.540 And so, there was much more of an emphasis on drug development activities.

00:37:06.200 Now, the other thing that was really disturbing about being at the FDA, it's not so much the agency, but it kind of speaks to academic psychiatry as a whole.

00:37:20.280 Now, you know, as I mentioned before, I think we're almost brainwashed when we go through our training to internalize these beliefs, you know, that these psychiatric conditions, they kind of morph and they evolve and they can get worse.

00:37:37.380 You know, to criticize the medications is to be morally bad and to be stigmatizing the mentally ill and scaring people away from medications.

00:37:45.800 Lots of academics, they end up working at the FDA.

00:37:49.720 That's just a natural progression for them.

00:37:52.460 And many of the people there had those beliefs.

00:37:54.560 And so, I didn't actually, when I looked at a lot of the colleagues that I was working with there, they were so hesitant to call out problems with medications.

00:38:05.640 I think the really cynical side of me says, maybe there was like a laziness component because if you identify a problem, you kind of have to deal with it and you have to do a report.

00:38:17.980 But I actually think it was more that they had been so kind of sucked into this narrative that they almost, they needed to protect the drugs and they needed to be kind of advocates for them.

00:38:30.880 So, rather than actually doing good science and really having a critical look at all of the problems that were happening with them, like the withdrawal problems, like PSSD, really clear issues, they were so hesitant to call people that, call it out.

00:38:47.440 So, I feel like it had been captured by industry just through all of that messaging.

00:38:54.340 We did an interview with a woman called Casey Means. 0.87

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00:41:16.880 This is the beginning of what we hope will be a long and happy partnership with Levels and Dr. Casey.

00:41:22.640 You may have noticed this is a great country with bad food.

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00:41:28.980 It didn't used to be this way.

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00:42:19.080 Snacking on masa chips is not like eating the garbage that you buy at convenience stores.

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00:44:00.860 Okay.

00:44:01.720 I'm not surprised by that.

00:44:03.300 That's known, as you well know, as regulatory capture.

00:44:05.620 And regulators are cut off from the effects of the drugs that they're regulating because

00:44:11.980 they're not treating patients.

00:44:13.120 So I'm not making excuses, but I'm not surprised.

00:44:16.260 What I am surprised by is the behavior of clinicians, of physicians prescribing these drugs

00:44:21.140 to individual people with whom they're in regular contact.

00:44:24.680 And they somehow don't notice that these people are not getting better and then killing themselves

00:44:28.400 or going through all these other problems that are the results of side effects.

00:44:33.980 Like, why don't the doctors notice this?

00:44:37.960 Like, where are the decent doctors?

00:44:42.460 So there are some, I mean, there are decent doctors out there and people are waking up to this.

00:44:47.500 But a lot of the rank and file physicians, again, they have been marinating in a soup of just marketing messages.

00:44:57.920 Like when you see someone who is getting worse, like you put them on an SSRI

00:45:02.840 and they have a manic type reaction to it.

00:45:07.400 Does that happen?

00:45:08.680 That does happen.

00:45:09.420 Yeah, this is a side effect.

00:45:11.040 Rather than saying, oh, we made you manic because we put you on this SSRI. 0.84

00:45:15.360 You can just say, we have bipolar disorder.

00:45:18.040 You know, you were depressed before, but you know, now because you're manic, you have bipolar disorder.

00:45:22.700 There was always this tilt towards viewing worsening as the underlying condition.

00:45:30.540 And so, so many people are trained in that way.

00:45:34.400 Is there evidence to support that?

00:45:36.480 No, there's no evidence to support it.

00:45:38.560 It's like, I mean, the whole diagnostic criteria in psychiatry, it's just, it's completely subjective.

00:45:44.660 It's just, you know, you just kind of, do you have these symptoms?

00:45:48.080 Okay, maybe you have bipolar disorder and there's a very limited education about the side effects.

00:45:54.900 It's also easier for doctors to look at worsening as the development of a new condition,

00:46:03.000 because what that means is one, you know, I'm not at fault, you know, because, you know,

00:46:07.480 I put this person on the drug and they're worse.

00:46:09.720 But two, if I just diagnose them as having a new condition, I can just hand them another drug.

00:46:14.500 Like, it's very kind of quick to just say, okay, well, now you have bipolar disorder, don't worry,

00:46:19.680 we've got a drug for that.

00:46:20.780 And it allows you to kind of treat them in a very quick way, rather than going through the mess of

00:46:27.600 saying, hey, you know, this was a drug side effect, now we have to get you off of it.

00:46:31.600 That's a lot of a much more involved process.

00:46:34.960 It sounds like the culture of medicine in this country is really kind of anti-human.

00:46:41.960 I mean, like, what about the people?

00:46:43.560 I'm sorry, I'm mean, but I...

00:46:47.240 No, I mean, it is.

00:46:48.720 I mean, it's a practice that has been really destroyed by a whole range of bad influences.

00:46:56.680 I mean, one, we can't trust our academics because so many of the academics that teach doctors

00:47:03.800 are actually on the payroll of pharmaceutical companies.

00:47:07.540 They are in positions of power because of assistance from the drug companies.

00:47:14.100 We also have a health insurance system that incentivizes people, doctors to see patients

00:47:22.100 in the shortest period of time.

00:47:24.220 You don't get incentivized to make someone well.

00:47:26.640 You get incentivized to just kind of churn through them.

00:47:30.420 And so you make nearly...

00:47:32.260 Like if you were to see one patient for 45 minutes to an hour, you essentially make half

00:47:38.300 as much as if you were to just churn through four patients within that period of time.

00:47:42.220 So even doctors have this incentive just to default to the fastest thing, which is to check...

00:47:48.780 Diagnose someone off a checklist and give them a drug because that's a hell of a lot easier

00:47:52.720 than understanding their life and their relationships and their work and their health and all of that.

00:47:57.240 And so that's really what's happened.

00:48:04.940 What are the side effects of SSRIs?

00:48:09.240 So there are a couple, but I want to start with one which really doesn't get a lot of airtime.

00:48:16.100 And that is actually the effect that everyone has.

00:48:19.900 And so these drugs, they work through emotional constriction.

00:48:23.880 And there's an opportunity...

00:48:26.480 Emotional constriction.

00:48:27.740 Numbing, numbing.

00:48:28.880 So if you're having like a lot of anxiety, negative emotions, it kind of just sucks it in.

00:48:33.720 But it'll also take out the positive things.

00:48:36.500 So many people will experience that as therapeutic.

00:48:41.480 But I mean, the risk of this is that you miss an opportunity to actually address the real reasons

00:48:49.340 that you're unhappy.

00:48:51.120 Many doctors, they will not talk to patients about this.

00:48:54.160 And most people have very clear issues why they're unhappy.

00:48:58.080 You know, they're having problems with drugs.

00:49:00.400 You know, they have relationship issues.

00:49:03.360 They have work issues.

00:49:04.820 They have, you know, they're eating terrible foods.

00:49:07.520 They have like massive insulin resistance or diabetes that has completely disrupted the

00:49:12.980 energy system of their body.

00:49:14.480 And their neurons are just starving for energy.

00:49:16.760 If you're having these legitimate problems, you just throw a drug on top of it to mask

00:49:21.680 that anxiety that is really like the smoke detector saying, problem, problem, problem.

00:49:26.840 Those issues, they just fester.

00:49:28.640 They just kind of sit there.

00:49:29.860 And they just get worse over time.

00:49:34.320 To me, that is the number one problem with these medications is that you miss an opportunity

00:49:40.620 to actually address the problem that is causing the anxiety.

00:49:45.700 That seems, now that you're saying it out loud, so obvious.

00:49:50.460 People have anxiety for a reason.

00:49:53.240 They feel sad for a reason.

00:49:55.400 I mean, most of the time anyway, correct?

00:49:57.980 Yeah.

00:49:58.720 I mean, it is correct.

00:49:59.720 But to say that, some people would say, Tucker, that is a really insensitive thing to say.

00:50:05.980 These people have medical problems.

00:50:07.900 You know, and that is what is the push.

00:50:10.420 But you can say, sure, depression's a medical.

00:50:12.780 I'm happy to acknowledge it's a medical problem with dire constant.

00:50:17.080 So once you kill yourself, it's very serious.

00:50:19.680 It's not, you know, reducing the seriousness of it or dismissing it as fake. 0.90

00:50:26.440 It's acknowledging just how real it is.

00:50:28.760 It's more real than a serotonin imbalance.

00:50:30.760 It has to do with like your life.

00:50:36.360 So. 1.00

00:50:37.100 I just can't believe there are people that stupid and shallow practicing medicine. 1.00

00:50:42.620 Yeah, they've done a number on us. 1.00

00:50:44.140 Yeah, because, I mean, they're not a lot of dumb doctors. 0.95

00:50:48.680 They're all pretty smart, right? 0.97

00:50:50.020 The screening, it's for intelligence to some extent.

00:50:53.200 But like, that's just so shallow.

00:50:54.980 I guess that's what I.

00:50:55.800 You mentioned religion.

00:50:56.860 I mean, I think we're ideologues in there.

00:50:59.220 We've been pushed into thinking about mental illness essentially in a way that benefits drug companies.

00:51:07.420 And a profession because psychiatry as a profession is also really into pushing this narrative because it gives us a primacy amongst the healthcare professionals.

00:51:17.840 Of course, that's right.

00:51:18.940 We are the doctors and we have the drugs.

00:51:21.200 And because of that, we need to protect the reputation of the drugs because to do so is to elevate us.

00:51:27.200 So that is really deep and smart.

00:51:29.600 No, that's right.

00:51:30.240 Because psychiatrists in this country anyway are unique among mental health professionals in that they can prescribe the drugs.

00:51:36.560 Yeah.

00:51:36.940 That's what makes you fundamentally different, right?

00:51:39.140 Yeah.

00:51:39.600 Yep.

00:51:40.040 Yeah.

00:51:40.960 And so, yeah, there's guild interests at play as well.

00:51:44.980 Guild interests.

00:51:45.820 I'm sure.

00:51:46.640 Yeah.

00:51:47.040 Right.

00:51:47.200 Because the marriage counselor can't give you SSRIs.

00:51:49.200 Yeah.

00:51:49.560 But you can.

00:51:50.300 Yep.

00:51:50.640 And that's why we're special.

00:51:52.220 And that's why don't question the drugs.

00:51:55.920 Wow.

00:51:57.080 That's so plausible.

00:51:58.540 Yeah.

00:51:58.760 So the first, what you describe as the first side effect is effectively ignoring the cause of the illness in the first place.

00:52:06.180 And that has costs.

00:52:07.760 Yeah.

00:52:08.080 And, you know, I'm going to mention a whole bunch of other things that are important.

00:52:11.800 We've got PSSD.

00:52:13.360 We have brain damage during withdrawal.

00:52:15.320 We have homicidal behavior.

00:52:17.260 Okay.

00:52:17.300 So let's just, let's go in order.

00:52:18.760 Yeah.

00:52:19.140 Yeah.

00:52:20.160 PSSD.

00:52:20.940 Yeah.

00:52:21.180 So this is.

00:52:21.980 What does that stand for? 0.56

00:52:22.820 It stands for post-SSRI sexual dysfunction.

00:52:25.660 And from my perspective, this is the biggest scandal in psychiatry going on at the moment that has been not discussed.

00:52:34.280 Now, there are people who get put on these medications that, well, firstly, when you, one of the big side effects of these medications is sexual dysfunction.

00:52:44.640 It happens in, I think it's like 70% of people.

00:52:48.180 70%?

00:52:49.060 Yeah.

00:52:49.840 Yeah.

00:52:50.240 So.

00:52:50.480 And when you say sexual dysfunction, since you're a doctor, we can just be totally blunt.

00:52:54.800 What are you specifically talking about?

00:52:56.240 Yeah.

00:52:56.720 So, so, so it would be like loss of interest in sex, you know, loss of arousal, difficulty to, to, to reach climax and erectile dysfunction.

00:53:07.980 Wow.

00:53:08.560 Yeah.

00:53:08.880 70%.

00:53:09.880 70%.

00:53:10.620 It's a really normal side effect.

00:53:13.400 And, but the issue is we tell people that this goes away when they come off the medications.

00:53:19.080 And this is just a temporary trade-off, you know, to feel less depressed, you're going to deal with the sexual dysfunction.

00:53:25.980 But what we've been seeing is that these drugs are causing permanent sexual dysfunction in people, even when they come off of them, they develop, you know, on top of all of those things I mentioned, they will develop genital anesthesia.

00:53:40.820 And so this is a real like neurological issue, like those areas down there, they, they, they lose erogenous sensation.

00:53:48.400 People will say that when they touch down there, it feels like the back of their hand or the back of their arm.

00:53:52.760 And so there's sensory changes.

00:53:54.700 Are you serious?

00:53:55.880 Yeah.

00:53:57.120 And, and so, so it's totally frightening.

00:54:01.220 For how long?

00:54:02.580 It can be permanent for some people.

00:54:04.340 Come on.

00:54:04.780 Yeah.

00:54:05.120 And so the prognosis is actually really, it's not good for that.

00:54:09.540 I, I, you know, some people will recover and, you know, three years or so, but there are case reports out there where this has gone on for decades.

00:54:17.080 But yeah, but it's not just that.

00:54:19.320 And here is the-

00:54:20.060 Basically you're castrating people.

00:54:21.280 You bet you're essentially castrating people, but it's worse than that because-

00:54:25.060 How could anything be worse than that?

00:54:26.560 Because along with the sexual dysfunction, and this is where the condition is, is misunderstood.

00:54:31.940 People think it's just a sexual problem, which is already horrific as is.

00:54:36.060 It causes, it causes cognitive damage as well.

00:54:42.040 People will, will, along with that, they'll have difficulty, severe difficulty concentrating, focusing, paying attention.

00:54:49.280 And there's also severe emotional blunting.

00:54:52.340 And so people will talk about being completely dissociated as well from their emotions.

00:54:58.060 Like if you were to hug a child, you know, your child or your wife, you just don't feel anything warm.

00:55:03.660 If you were to hear a favorite song from your childhood that, you know, used to make like the back of your neck kind of a prickle from nostalgia, all of that gets like nuked and taken out.

00:55:16.080 And so you have people who are essentially lobotomized with cognitive impairment who actually, who also have severe sexual dysfunction.

00:55:24.700 So you're basically destroying someone's soul.

00:55:27.380 I mean, the things that make you distinctly human.

00:55:29.800 Yeah.

00:55:30.360 Your, your love, your emotional response, your sexual response, which is very deep.

00:55:34.940 It's not just, I'm horny today.

00:55:36.140 It's like, it's your life force.

00:55:37.820 It's your procreative force.

00:55:38.900 It's what keeps the species alive.

00:55:43.060 That's gone.

00:55:43.820 It's, it's wiped out and people become highly suicidal because when you don't feel anything, you don't feel any connection to life.

00:55:52.020 It's, it's like, there's nothing to live for anymore.

00:55:54.720 And so the suicide rate in this population is through the roof.

00:55:58.460 And, and I want to say something.

00:56:00.140 Just a second.

00:56:00.760 Yeah.

00:56:01.000 And this is all confirmed?

00:56:02.720 Yeah.

00:56:02.980 So, so that's what I want to say.

00:56:04.360 Some people hearing this would be like, this is so crazy.

00:56:08.060 There's no way this could be true.

00:56:09.800 Yes.

00:56:10.040 That, that's my response.

00:56:10.880 PSSD is a listed side effect in the European Union.

00:56:15.900 So the European Union has already acted on this.

00:56:18.040 They've put it in the warnings and precautions of all of the SSRIs and SNRI antidepressants over there.

00:56:24.860 So they have recognized it.

00:56:26.360 Canada has recognized it.

00:56:27.720 Australia has recognized it.

00:56:29.420 Hong Kong has recognized it.

00:56:30.940 The New York Times has run pieces on this.

00:56:33.780 It's, it's, this is being reviewed by the FDA right now.

00:56:37.520 This, this is like, this is not a fringe issue.

00:56:41.520 This is something that several regulatory agencies, like the biggest ones in the world, like the European Union, second biggest regulatory agency in the world.

00:56:49.040 They have acknowledged this and they put this in the drug labels to warn doctors so they can talk to their patients about this.

00:56:57.120 This, this isn't fringe.

00:56:58.520 This is completely acknowledged by major health regulators, but doctors do not tell patients about it.

00:57:05.160 Do doctors know?

00:57:08.780 Most of the doctors don't know.

00:57:10.760 And that's because, well, there is no incentive to get this message out there.

00:57:16.940 Now, when this came on, so when the European Union...

00:57:22.360 So there, there's a huge population of SSRI Unix, many of whom kill themselves out of despair caused by SSRIs.

00:57:30.960 And yet, for some reason, nobody knows this is happening.

00:57:34.520 I'm, I'm confused.

00:57:35.920 Like, why don't, why don't people talk about this?

00:57:38.700 Again, it's, it's this issue where I think media doesn't want to touch it because to do so would be to scare people away from life-saving drugs.

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00:59:11.320 How are they life-saving if they hike the suicide rate?

00:59:14.980 They're clearly implicated in mass shootings.

00:59:17.120 Let me say that again.

00:59:17.860 They're clearly implicated in mass shootings.

00:59:19.800 Yeah. 0.98

00:59:20.660 And they castrate people and make them want to kill themselves.

00:59:24.060 Like, how is that life-saving?

00:59:26.040 I mean, it's just a slogan because they're not life-saving at all.

00:59:29.120 Because when you look at, actually, the clinical trial data, it's clear evidence that people who are under age 25, it actually makes them, they engage in more suicidal activity than the people on placebo.

00:59:43.720 It's absolutely insane.

00:59:46.360 And then when re-analyses have been done looking at the adult populations, they also find higher rates of suicide in the clinical trials.

00:59:53.800 But I want to have some nuance here.

00:59:55.880 They can be experienced as life-saving for some people.

01:00:00.580 Like, if you have a lot of anxiety and you get put on this medication and it blunts it, you will experience that at life-saving, as feeling life-saving in that moment.

01:00:09.400 But in general, on a population level, they're actually contributing to more suicide attempts.

01:00:14.780 I used to feel that way about vodka.

01:00:16.860 Yeah.

01:00:17.300 Really strongly.

01:00:18.680 I'm being serious.

01:00:19.720 And any heavy drinker can tell you.

01:00:21.200 You wake up and you feel completely out of control, completely out of control.

01:00:25.360 You know, you just feel like your head's going to explode.

01:00:27.520 You've got pins and needles, anxiety.

01:00:29.360 You just, you're so sensitive, you can't even, like, live in this world.

01:00:33.100 And you have, I was a double screwdriver in the morning guy.

01:00:36.320 Mm-hmm.

01:00:37.160 Solves the problem.

01:00:37.980 Like, right away.

01:00:39.380 Yeah.

01:00:39.500 By the time you get to the bottom of the glass, you're under control.

01:00:44.140 Mm-hmm.

01:00:44.320 So, I would call that, and in fact, at the time, did call that life-saving.

01:00:48.560 Yeah.

01:00:49.680 And then, of course, the progression of alcohol and alcoholism is well-known to most people.

01:00:54.320 So, it's like, people laugh at you when you say it's life-saving.

01:00:56.600 How is vodka in the morning life-saving?

01:00:58.480 Well, if, you know, if you've experienced it, you know why someone could say that.

01:01:02.380 Yeah.

01:01:02.640 But, big picture, that's insane.

01:01:05.900 So, SSRIs sound like exactly the same phenomenon.

01:01:10.960 It is.

01:01:11.740 I mean, on multiple levels, I think, you know, they, one, they make you ignore the real problems,

01:01:16.840 which fester and get worse and could actually push you eventually towards becoming suicidal.

01:01:21.680 And two, I think they disrupt your brain chemistry over time and actually make you more likely to be depressed and develop other issues.

01:01:29.000 And I just can't believe, basically, the entire weight of the American medical establishment, the regulatory bodies,

01:01:38.060 some of the biggest publicly traded companies in the world, they're all basically prescribing vodka to desperate people.

01:01:44.820 It sounds crazy.

01:01:47.960 It does.

01:01:48.760 Honestly, it does sound crazy.

01:01:49.680 And people are going to listen to this and they're going to say, you know, this is crazy.

01:01:53.220 But the beauty of it, and the reason I feel so good about having this conversation, is that it's provable.

01:01:59.500 We don't have to guess because we have the outcomes.

01:02:02.680 Right?

01:02:03.460 So, the two numbers, it's as a layman that seem relevant to me, doses prescribed, suicide rate.

01:02:11.240 Like, that just seems like a pretty big picture way to measure success.

01:02:16.060 If more people are killing themselves as you've got more prescriptions for this garbage, it's at very least not working. 0.67

01:02:21.720 Can we say that? 0.99

01:02:23.080 I mean, that seems logical.

01:02:24.700 I think it makes sense when you look at that on the population level.

01:02:27.680 But I also think it makes sense intuitively for a lot of people.

01:02:31.280 I mean, with nearly, you know, 15 to 20% of people being on these medications, everyone knows someone who's on these drugs.

01:02:39.400 Yeah.

01:02:39.620 In their family, in their social circle.

01:02:43.520 Just look, how are they doing?

01:02:45.260 Are these people thriving?

01:02:46.480 You know, a lot of the times, I mean, the stories that I hear is, you know, that person's not doing that great.

01:02:53.200 You know, they've slowly gotten worse over time.

01:02:56.380 I mean, you can look at it at a population level, but this issue is so common.

01:02:59.740 People actually see this in their real life, in the people that they know.

01:03:03.720 Have you ever spoken to someone who had numb genitals or no sex drive? 0.87

01:03:10.340 Yeah, I've spoken to probably 20 to 30 of them. 0.95

01:03:12.940 What do they say?

01:03:14.220 What's that like?

01:03:14.940 Like, it's like they wake up in a horror movie.

01:03:18.820 I, you know, I think about a woman and I interviewed her and from my recollection, I mean, so she got on one of these medications, beautiful young woman, and she ended up developing PSSD.

01:03:31.880 She told the doctor that it had happened to her and she became incredibly distressed.

01:03:36.240 You know, what is happening to me? 0.55

01:03:38.680 Her sex drive just gone. 0.97

01:03:39.680 Sex drive gone, cognitive damage, emotional blunting, completely disassociated from her 0.98

01:03:44.560 family, from her emotions and disconnected from her life.

01:03:49.400 The doctor involuntarily hospitalized her, saying that she was delusional and that she had health

01:03:56.300 anxiety and tried to pressure her onto anti-psychotic medication because they just, they simply did not, they could not accept that this had happened.

01:04:05.040 They managed to briefly turn her family against her and just say, you know, she's wrong.

01:04:10.000 She's delusional. 0.52

01:04:10.720 She has another psychiatric condition.

01:04:12.220 And so she ends up in a psychiatric hospital.

01:04:15.700 Talk about a horror show.

01:04:17.180 You get put on a medication that's meant to help you.

01:04:19.880 It destroys your nervous system.

01:04:22.280 And, and then a doctor involuntarily hospitalizes you and turns your family against you.

01:04:27.080 These people literally wake up in a horror show.

01:04:29.260 I spoke to another person in India.

01:04:31.160 Is the doctor still practicing?

01:04:33.040 Oh yeah.

01:04:33.460 They didn't.

01:04:33.860 Yeah.

01:04:34.440 They're still practicing.

01:04:35.960 And this is not isolated.

01:04:37.060 I spoke to another-

01:04:37.620 Why is that person not in jail?

01:04:38.640 You know, it's-

01:04:44.280 That's so cruel.

01:04:46.160 That's cruel.

01:04:47.040 In my opinion.

01:04:47.840 So.

01:04:48.240 Yeah.

01:04:50.300 Sorry, I'm interrupting.

01:04:51.480 I'm making me mad again.

01:04:53.380 You spoke to someone in India?

01:04:55.120 The same thing happened.

01:04:56.480 Yeah.

01:04:56.960 It, you know, because, you know, doctors, they've, they've never heard of this condition before.

01:05:02.160 And it just seems like, you know, too, too crazy to be true.

01:05:07.460 How could these life-saving drugs, you know, do something like this?

01:05:12.800 And the same thing happened.

01:05:14.300 You know, he ended up being involuntarily hospitalized.

01:05:16.680 This, this young man for months and his family was turned against him.

01:05:21.860 He kept on trying to tell them that this had happened to him and it took them months to,

01:05:26.040 to let him out.

01:05:26.780 And, and, and, and, and so, yeah, it's, it's, it's about the worst thing that I could ever imagine

01:05:33.160 happening to someone.

01:05:35.000 And they lose people all the time.

01:05:36.620 The, the suicide rate's out of control in, in this population.

01:05:40.040 So, a doctor who refuses to see the obvious and is committed knowingly or not to a lie,

01:05:48.880 it seems to me to be likely in a case like this to prescribe a drug on top of the drug

01:05:53.320 that it clearly caused.

01:05:54.740 Yeah.

01:05:55.260 The symptoms he's trying to treat, right?

01:05:57.520 Yeah.

01:05:57.820 What happens when you do that?

01:05:59.260 A lot of these patients seem like they're on all kinds of different drugs.

01:06:02.360 How do they interact with each other?

01:06:03.640 What's, what's the effect of that?

01:06:04.900 Yeah, I mean, you, I mean, it's, it's awful, right?

01:06:09.620 You know, you have someone who's highly distressed for legitimate reasons with a, with a totally

01:06:14.200 messed up nervous system and you've just thrown them on an antipsychotic.

01:06:17.460 So now they're kind of like blunted and even more dulled, uh, dealing with the same problem. 0.55

01:06:24.200 So if these drugs can eliminate your sexual response, numb your genitals for life, drive

01:06:29.640 you to suicide, what other, is it possible that they have other sexual side effects?

01:06:35.780 Well, having spoken to, um, some of these PSSD sufferers, um, I've had two men, a heterosexual

01:06:45.540 men tell me that they started to question their sexuality, um, because of, because of all of

01:06:51.600 the, the blunting that was going on.

01:06:53.440 These were men who were having encounters with women that they were just saying, I would find

01:06:58.160 this person very arousing and attractive and that's not happening anymore.

01:07:02.020 And they start wondering whether they're gay.

01:07:04.740 And so I think on that level, it can make people feel asexual.

01:07:08.940 It can make people start to question their sexuality, um, you know, which I've directly

01:07:13.260 seen.

01:07:14.320 And then the whole other issue, which is even more frightening is the, is the data that's

01:07:21.320 coming out, uh, is some of the animal studies, um, about what happens to, to mice who are

01:07:27.980 exposed in utero to antidepressants.

01:07:30.520 Uh, cause this has always been a question that people have been curious about, you know,

01:07:34.040 is there, like, what are the effects of exposing a developing nervous system during this period

01:07:40.680 of life where it goes from being like a speck to a fully formed brain in nine months?

01:07:44.980 You know, these drugs freely cross placenta. 0.96

01:07:47.380 What is the effect on the development of that?

01:07:49.660 They do.

01:07:50.080 They do.

01:07:50.480 All of them do.

01:07:51.340 Yeah.

01:07:51.740 All psychiatric drugs freely cross.

01:07:53.640 So a mother's taking these drugs, the drugs are in the developing child. 0.94

01:07:56.740 Yes.

01:07:57.320 Yes.

01:07:57.720 We know that.

01:07:58.500 Yeah.

01:07:59.000 Fact.

01:07:59.660 Yeah.

01:07:59.840 But no study has been done on what that means.

01:08:03.680 Well, there have been some studies.

01:08:05.540 Um, and so, um, firstly, there's, so there's the studies in, in, in rats, um, and mice.

01:08:11.680 And what they find is that the mice who are exposed in utero, they grow up with a higher

01:08:17.180 rate of autistic like behaviors and also decreased sexual interests.

01:08:22.080 So they mate less than the other mice.

01:08:24.400 Now you might be saying, Hey, well, that's just mice.

01:08:26.940 Who knows if that happens in humans?

01:08:28.400 I tell you what, I'm concerned enough about that already to, to worry about humans.

01:08:32.420 I don't need to see that human study, but we do have some studies in humans and what

01:08:37.980 we've, uh, and what they've found is, you know, we have 12 MRI studies that have control,

01:08:44.900 controlled for depression, which is essentially just a fancy way of making sure that depression

01:08:49.180 isn't a factor.

01:08:50.160 And, and they, they've looked at the brains and they find that there's structural changes

01:08:55.020 and functional changes in the brains of, of, of kids who are exposed versus those who are

01:09:01.060 not exposed.

01:09:01.980 They've then gone again and looked at this when they, when the kids have become adolescents

01:09:06.480 and they've looked at their sensory processing.

01:09:09.800 And the kids who were exposed growing up, um, had altered sensory processing when they looked

01:09:15.480 at the amygdala.

01:09:16.140 It's a part of the brain that's, uh, responsible for, uh, um, high emotions and, and those changes,

01:09:23.200 they have correlated with worse mental health outcomes.

01:09:27.840 Um, so that's like a whole nother topic that, you know, I was recently at the FDA talking about

01:09:32.780 this with some of my colleagues that many women are not actually being told that, uh, there

01:09:39.500 are real risks, um, to, you know, to your child.

01:09:44.260 If you, if you take these medications, um, when the nervous system is developing.

01:09:49.200 Are they prescribed to pregnant women?

01:09:51.540 10% of pregnant, I think nine or 10% of pregnant women are taking antidepressants.

01:09:58.140 There's been a massive increase in, uh, well, of sexual changes of all kinds, um, in the way

01:10:04.700 that people couple in the way, you know, literally in the way they have sex, in the outcome that

01:10:11.780 are children who were born and in self-identified sexual orientation, a massive increase in

01:10:18.020 homosexuality, massive increase, like mind boggling increase in transgenderism. 0.99

01:10:24.320 No one seems interested in why is it possible that if you've got 10% of the population on

01:10:30.740 these drugs, that there's a connection there?

01:10:35.700 I mean, that's, that's, I think that's something to be explored because, you know, yes, you

01:10:40.880 could make an argument, okay, the world is more accepting these days and, and, and maybe

01:10:44.720 people are coming out. 1.00

01:10:45.600 That's bullshit. 0.99

01:10:46.460 The numbers are so high that that's not it. 0.99

01:10:48.560 But I'm looking at these animal, this, these animal data, I'm, I'm seeing changes in, in

01:10:53.980 sexual interest in the mice who are exposed growing up.

01:10:56.480 I mean, we're putting kids who are seven, six, seven, eight, who go through sexual maturity with

01:11:02.400 their sex drive, essentially blunted from these medications.

01:11:06.860 Um, I've, I'm having people come to me and tell me that they're questioning their sexuality

01:11:10.800 because they're not feeling attraction and arousal.

01:11:14.820 Right.

01:11:15.100 You can connect the dots.

01:11:18.420 I mean, it has to be playing a role.

01:11:22.060 Is there like currently an NIH study of this underway or is anyone saying, hey, wait a second,

01:11:28.560 like you could change the future of humanity with this kind of stuff?

01:11:32.280 This is like big consequences.

01:11:34.780 No, I mean, the NIMH has essentially been useless.

01:11:40.100 I mean, they, all, all they do, uh, from, from what I see is they, they, they just, they're

01:11:45.640 essentially just looking for drug targets in the brain.

01:11:48.040 They're not doing any research into side effects.

01:11:50.500 They're not doing any studies comparing non-drug alternatives to drugs for the treatment of anxiety

01:11:56.000 and depression.

01:11:56.620 They are so captured and just obsessed with finding the next target to throw a drug at.

01:12:01.720 Um, I think the American public has been betrayed by the NIMH.

01:12:05.920 I really do.

01:12:07.940 Well, it sounds like a lot of people have been killed.

01:12:09.880 What about, um, going back to the question of side effects?

01:12:14.240 Um, I don't think every time you, you raise the question like, hey, it seems like a lot

01:12:20.960 of the school shooters that we know about, to the extent we know anything about a lot of

01:12:26.300 them, um, they seem to be on these drugs.

01:12:30.080 Has there been research into that?

01:12:31.580 I know you're not allowed to say that.

01:12:32.560 YouTube like shuts you down if you say that.

01:12:34.400 I don't know why.

01:12:35.740 Yeah.

01:12:35.920 We're going to, we're throttled for sure, you know, but.

01:12:38.860 For, for asking that question.

01:12:40.520 Yeah.

01:12:40.680 For asking that question.

01:12:41.640 Yep.

01:12:42.320 Yeah.

01:12:43.220 There weren't school shootings, you know, I mean, the biggest school shooting of like

01:12:47.860 American history took place at the University of Texas.

01:12:50.300 Chuck Whitman, who turns out he had a brain tumor.

01:12:52.960 So there was like, there was like a reason that that happened.

01:12:55.220 Went up in the bell tower, killed all these people.

01:12:56.900 So then there was a lull and then Columbine happens.

01:13:00.360 And then there's like probably many reasons for this, but the increase in school shootings

01:13:06.080 coincides with, almost precisely coincides with, almost precisely coincides with this massive

01:13:12.100 increase in the prescription of these drugs.

01:13:13.560 So like, is anyone studying this?

01:13:19.200 Well, it's actually really hard to study is, is the issue.

01:13:24.940 I want to say this because this is, you know, a topic, you know, I don't think drugs are involved

01:13:29.360 in all the school shootings.

01:13:30.540 I do think there is a social contagion element to it.

01:13:33.440 But I do think if you just, if you look at the side effects of all of these medications,

01:13:41.240 they, it's already in the label.

01:13:43.180 You know, if you look at stimulants right there, it says it can cause aggression and hostility.

01:13:48.280 If you look at antipsychotics like Abilify in the label, it says it can cause aggression.

01:13:53.040 If you look at the antidepressants, it also says it can cause mania and aggression and agitation.

01:14:00.720 And that's kind of the opposite of the intended effect now.

01:14:03.440 Well, what these things are, are paradoxical side effects.

01:14:07.360 And so, and maybe an easy way to think about it is if there were 10 people in a room and

01:14:12.480 there was smoking cannabis, you know, you might have nine people giggling and you have

01:14:16.280 one person becoming paranoid.

01:14:18.200 There's something just about that person's genetics and the way they respond to it, that

01:14:21.880 they have the opposite reaction.

01:14:24.400 And so that can happen with psychiatric medications.

01:14:27.000 And so these are rare side effects, you know, and, but if you're putting like, you know,

01:14:32.660 15% of the population on these, on these drugs, rare side effects are going to happen.

01:14:40.280 And, you know, and so the next thing is, like I said, we know these, these drugs can do this.

01:14:45.600 Well, has this ever actually happened?

01:14:47.620 And, and it has, because, you know, there's, there have been lawsuits, for instance, there

01:14:53.440 was one in the early nineties, a, it was, it was the Tobin case.

01:14:58.180 There was a gentleman called Don Schell who had had a bad reaction to Pax.

01:15:02.880 He had a bad reaction, I think, to Prozac.

01:15:04.900 And then he was put on Paxil many years later.

01:15:08.500 And shortly thereafter, he became incredibly homicidal and he killed his wife, his daughter

01:15:15.460 and his granddaughter, and then shot himself.

01:15:17.640 Um, now the son, the surviving son-in-law, the, the, the husband of the daughter who he

01:15:25.000 killed ended up bringing suit against, I think it was Smith Klein at the time.

01:15:29.520 It wasn't GSK.

01:15:30.980 Um, they go to a, they go to a jury trial and they, and they win.

01:15:34.900 Um, it gets, it gets appealed and, and the, the appeal isn't successful and, and he ends

01:15:39.480 up getting paid out.

01:15:40.280 And so we even have, we, I mean, we have legal cases where jurors have listened to the evidence

01:15:45.720 of these cases and said, if not for this drug, you know, this, this awful murder, suicide

01:15:52.400 wouldn't have happened.

01:15:53.860 And so we know this happens from court cases.

01:15:56.500 And there have been many other cases like this.

01:15:59.340 You just never hear about them because you're not allowed to talk about this.

01:16:03.520 Uh, why would this video be throttled for broaching this topic?

01:16:08.640 I'm confused.

01:16:10.660 Well, because, I mean, the dominant narrative is essentially that school shootings are caused

01:16:15.600 by guns.

01:16:17.400 And if you, uh, to, I have a lot of guns, it's never occurred to me.

01:16:20.760 Yeah.

01:16:21.780 And, and so that, I mean, it's, it's, this is meant to be stigmatizing.

01:16:25.900 This is meant to be something that scares people away from medications and it doesn't fit the

01:16:30.220 mold.

01:16:31.260 Um, I mean, because to, if you were to accept that this, this can happen, you know, like if

01:16:38.820 it's, even if this is a one in 2 million type side effect, that's still happening a couple

01:16:43.100 times a year that people are becoming homicidal on, on these medications.

01:16:48.540 Um, and so I think people, they don't, you, you, you, you just can't say it.

01:16:54.580 It's, it's, it's, it's, it's taboo.

01:16:56.860 Um, it shouldn't be if you care about the murdered kids at, you know, the schools.

01:17:05.420 Um, it's changing though.

01:17:07.040 And, and this is like a silver lining here that will make people like me seem a lot less

01:17:11.740 crazy because through bipartisan support, the governor of Tennessee just, uh, instituted

01:17:17.780 a new law mandating that following school shootings, there needs to be an investigation

01:17:22.720 into the use of psychiatric medications.

01:17:25.680 This is the first state to actually try and get that data, um, uh, to look into it because

01:17:31.900 oftentimes it's, you know, it's redacted.

01:17:34.320 The FBI has it.

01:17:35.260 They don't give it to anyone.

01:17:36.160 It's kind of like shoved away in a box, but in the state of Tennessee with bipartisan support,

01:17:42.320 they will now look at this for any school shootings.

01:17:45.620 Good, good.

01:17:46.660 So what, okay, um, you are, you know, middle-aged person going through the middle-aged, you know,

01:17:54.460 the litany of middle-aged drama and you find yourself sad, maybe even depressed.

01:17:59.260 You go to the shrink and you are prescribed drugs.

01:18:04.580 What are the most commonly prescribed drugs?

01:18:07.080 Which are the drugs you should be the most afraid of?

01:18:09.100 Assuming there's a difference.

01:18:10.140 I mean, I think the SSRIs, we've talked a lot about them, but the other class are benzodiazepines.

01:18:18.020 These are awful drugs.

01:18:20.300 Uh, they're usually used for anxiety and insomnia.

01:18:24.280 And what are the brand names on those?

01:18:26.220 Xanax, Klonopin, Valium, um, Tamazepam, yeah.

01:18:34.800 Very common drugs in this country.

01:18:36.720 Really, yeah.

01:18:37.560 So, you know, their use is declining, um, but they are still, they're still quite common.

01:18:42.580 The main issue with them is that they, God, they feel good.

01:18:47.160 And I know we were talking about this before and you had mentioned taking one before.

01:18:51.380 I mean, it's, it's, I've taken them.

01:18:52.860 It's almost like immediate.

01:18:54.160 Like you take one in high school.

01:18:55.480 I never took another one because it was the most profound.

01:18:58.460 I mean, they solve all your problems in like four minutes.

01:19:01.300 So, super addictive, right?

01:19:04.020 You know, to, to have something like that on hand.

01:19:07.700 But the real problem with the benzos is when it comes to coming off of them, they can be incredibly difficult to stop.

01:19:17.360 Um, and-

01:19:20.340 What does that mean, difficult to stop?

01:19:21.980 Uh, that, so because they have such a potent sort of anxiety reducing and insomnia, uh, and sorry, it's sleep inducing effect.

01:19:30.980 When you come off of them, your anxiety goes through the roof and, and you develop severe insomnia.

01:19:36.300 Some people even die from coming off benzodiazepines.

01:19:39.460 It's, it's so jarring to the brain.

01:19:42.160 And because of that, people can get trapped off the drug, trapped on the drug.

01:19:45.600 Every time they try and come off of it, it's so uncomfortable that they have to go back on.

01:19:50.500 And they can also develop another condition called, uh, protracted withdrawal.

01:19:55.980 And so some people, when they've been on this medication for years and they try and come off, they develop a kind of a brain injury.

01:20:03.160 And so they, they taper themselves off the medication too quickly.

01:20:07.680 Um, and they go into a severe withdrawal and it, and the symptoms never stop.

01:20:13.040 They, they end up with ringing in their ears, light sensitivity, cognitive impairment, severe anxiety, burning in their hands and feet.

01:20:21.100 Oh, come on. 0.87

01:20:21.760 Yeah.

01:20:22.500 And then they say to themselves, they go, I'm just in withdrawal.

01:20:25.620 You know, I've, I've been white knuckling through this for the last couple of months.

01:20:28.560 I'm just going to start the drug again.

01:20:30.560 I don't want to deal with this anymore.

01:20:32.140 I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll find it.

01:20:32.700 I'll find another way to come off.

01:20:34.040 They start the drug again.

01:20:35.300 It doesn't go away.

01:20:37.080 Um, and this is.

01:20:39.200 Wait, the symptoms don't go away?

01:20:40.440 The symptoms don't go away.

01:20:41.220 And this is, these are the patients that I actually treat in my practice.

01:20:43.920 I'd say probably 70% of the people I work with now have neurological damage from coming off benzodiazepines and SSRI medications too quickly.

01:20:55.940 Um, thankfully it actually has, I mean, it's awful.

01:20:59.400 It has a decent prognosis.

01:21:01.360 Most people recover from it within two years, but for many people, it can be two years of severe disability.

01:21:09.220 Um, and these are the people you treat.

01:21:12.240 These are the people I treat.

01:21:13.140 So you see this.

01:21:13.940 So I see this on a daily basis.

01:21:15.460 I see this multiple days a week.

01:21:18.280 Uh, people who have brain damage, uh, from coming off these medications too quickly.

01:21:23.200 Now, again, I know most people haven't heard about this before.

01:21:26.780 So they're going to be listening to this and saying, you know, this is crazy.

01:21:30.560 You know, how could I have never heard that coming off these medications could induce brain damage?

01:21:35.500 Read the drug labels in, in the U.S.

01:21:38.040 Every single benzodiazepine, um, has a section in there that says, that talks about the risk of protracted withdrawal.

01:21:45.320 So what does that look like?

01:21:46.380 So describe, obviously, anonymously, but like the experience of one of your patients.

01:21:51.800 So the experience of one of my patients is, man.

01:21:58.440 Um, I mean, it's, it's, it's so, it's so bad.

01:22:05.360 Uh, you were living your life one day, you decide to come off a medication.

01:22:10.280 And then before you know it, your whole life is turned upside down.

01:22:15.780 Uh, your brain, you are gripped with severe anxiety and obsessive, dark thoughts that just

01:22:24.260 torment you all the time.

01:22:26.160 You never have a moment of rest or relaxation.

01:22:30.360 You, you simply cannot relax.

01:22:32.260 Some people feel so keyed up that they pace incessantly in circles.

01:22:37.120 It's a condition called akathisia.

01:22:40.000 Um, um, um, and they, they cannot stop moving.

01:22:44.480 They become social recluses because they cannot go out in public because it's too bright.

01:22:51.540 It's too noisy.

01:22:52.520 The, the, the nervous system is like a snail without a shell.

01:22:56.480 Even interacting with people in their shopping center can cause like, you know, surges in

01:23:02.900 adrenaline.

01:23:03.800 Uh, people have severe neuropathic pain.

01:23:06.980 They, when, you know, their feet burn, um, and it destroys families.

01:23:13.100 I mean, people become disabled, um, people take their lives, uh, frequently. 0.99

01:23:18.960 Um, and this is, you know, I, I know I mentioned before about PSSD being like the biggest story

01:23:25.820 going on, but this, this would be just as big.

01:23:27.980 Honestly, there are probably millions of people who are suffering from protracted withdrawal

01:23:34.400 from benzos or SSRIs.

01:23:36.460 Um, um, um, thankfully this has actually been picked up a lot by, um, major, uh, news outlets,

01:23:43.180 uh, recently, but it's, this condition has, and it, and it, and it does kill people.

01:23:50.740 It, how long do you have to be on benzos or SSRIs to develop physical dependency and to

01:23:55.940 get these kinds of withdrawal symptoms?

01:23:57.740 So for most people, it's several years and then, uh, it's triggered by coming off the

01:24:02.520 medication.

01:24:03.100 Several years.

01:24:04.000 I mean.

01:24:04.520 Yeah.

01:24:05.600 Is there any evidence it's a good idea to put someone on SSRIs or benzos for years?

01:24:10.720 No, no, there, there, there isn't.

01:24:12.920 But I do want to say, I, I have had some people develop this much quicker than several years,

01:24:17.420 like within taking the medication for a few months and things like that.

01:24:21.400 That's much less common.

01:24:22.700 Usually the way it happens is you're on it for several years, five years, decades.

01:24:27.740 You come off too quickly and then you get hit.

01:24:29.920 Yeah.

01:24:30.140 That's really common.

01:24:31.080 You've seen that.

01:24:31.960 Yeah.

01:24:32.940 Yeah.

01:24:34.380 Decades.

01:24:35.680 What, what is the doctor thinking?

01:24:39.160 Well, the, when they put them on these drugs for decades.

01:24:42.480 Well, I mean, if someone's coming back to get a script filled, you know, after 15, 20 years

01:24:47.140 of taking one of these drugs, it's like, does no one pause to say, what does it do to something?

01:24:52.040 The brain's not designed for that, right?

01:24:54.560 Yeah, they're, well, they think that they're helping the person.

01:24:59.300 At the risk of getting a little technical, I want to go here because I think it's important.

01:25:03.700 Each, so when, when a drug comes onto the market, there's a study called a relapse prevention

01:25:09.600 study.

01:25:10.260 This is essentially the rationale for leaving people on these drugs indefinitely.

01:25:15.940 Like, and, and so I think it's important to talk a bit about the design of these studies

01:25:20.960 because it's so, it's so telling.

01:25:24.260 Essentially, a drug company will get a group of people and they'll put them on the drug

01:25:28.340 for like, say six months.

01:25:30.680 And so you have 500 people on the drug for six months.

01:25:34.680 250, you then, this is, this is actually how the studies are designed.

01:25:40.200 250 people at a certain point, they continue the drug and the other 250, they rapidly stop

01:25:46.600 it.

01:25:47.400 And so they pull them off the drug either immediately or at the longest about two weeks.

01:25:52.620 And then they watch what happens to those two groups over time.

01:25:56.960 And, and they're looking for, um, how many people become depressed in the two groups with

01:26:02.540 the, the, the thinking being, well, you know, if the patients who continued the drug become

01:26:07.440 less depressed, then that means it works.

01:26:10.020 But the issue with these studies is that it completely ignores the fact that people develop

01:26:17.080 withdrawal.

01:26:18.240 And so if you stick a bunch of people on this drug for six months and then you stop it

01:26:22.320 immediately or within two weeks, they are going to develop withdrawal symptoms.

01:26:26.580 They will, that will look like a depression.

01:26:29.420 Um, and, and so the study is flawed, essentially it's, it's majorly flawed.

01:26:34.400 It's embarrassing that the FDA even allows this and that doctors even believe this is a rationale

01:26:40.960 for keeping people on these medications.

01:26:44.180 Um, and that's it.

01:26:45.800 That is, that is the study that lets doctors feel good about filling these drugs up.

01:26:52.320 Again and again and again, because they say, oh, we're, we're preventing relapse because

01:26:56.080 this, this poorly designed study that makes no sense, that is honestly just embarrassing

01:27:00.520 even to believe in, uh, showed that when you rapidly pulled people off the medication,

01:27:05.560 there was more depressive relapse, which really it wasn't.

01:27:08.820 It was just withdrawal.

01:27:10.260 Um, and so just even at the heart of it is just bad science and faulty studies.

01:27:15.760 I mean, even I, uh, as a non-scientist can understand the gaps in the logic there.

01:27:22.300 It seems pretty obvious that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm fixated on the worldview

01:27:27.460 that allows this to persist.

01:27:29.000 Like how would you have to feel about other people to allow this kind of stuff to happen?

01:27:33.360 And I just want to ask when you were doing your training as a doctor for whatever, six

01:27:38.960 or eight, 10 years, however long it took, did you get a sense that other doctors considered

01:27:45.760 like the human soul ever?

01:27:49.560 Or is there a sense that people are just like a more evolved animal?

01:27:52.940 Is there something special about people?

01:27:54.680 Do they have like, is there a spiritual component to a person?

01:27:58.940 Did anyone ever acknowledge that?

01:28:00.180 We, no, we, that's not part of the training.

01:28:04.920 So if you think people are just clever cattle, you can treat them like this.

01:28:11.240 Yeah.

01:28:12.160 Well, you know, with biological systems, you know, where you can sort of just tinker with

01:28:15.960 it with the right chemical.

01:28:17.300 That's what we are.

01:28:19.600 That's the belief.

01:28:21.100 That's the way biological psychiatry is taught. 0.95

01:28:24.800 So it's kind of inevitable you're going to wind up in a place like this, isn't it?

01:28:28.500 Because that's not true.

01:28:30.580 People are not just machines.

01:28:33.820 Right?

01:28:34.440 And no other civilizations ever thought that they were.

01:28:37.340 Yeah.

01:28:41.280 Sorry, I don't, I don't mean to bum you out.

01:28:43.320 No, no, no.

01:28:43.960 I'm just, I'm, I'm thinking about, I mean, the only reason that happens is because there

01:28:49.300 is such a massive incentive to recast the human experience in that way.

01:28:55.140 Yeah.

01:28:55.800 Yeah.

01:28:56.020 But it's, that's not reality.

01:28:58.700 No.

01:28:59.120 At all.

01:28:59.660 No.

01:29:02.040 Yeah.

01:29:02.480 So what about, uh, amphetamines and their ADHD and the fact that like every third kid

01:29:13.460 on your street is taking this stuff?

01:29:15.160 Like what, what is ADHD or amphetamines an effective way to treat it?

01:29:21.180 What are the long-term effects of those drugs?

01:29:24.980 I mean, ADHD, I mean, I want to start here.

01:29:28.920 So there was, there was an awesome piece in the, in New York magazine recently that summarized

01:29:34.120 a lot of this research, but it really, the thing that most parents care about is usually

01:29:39.400 academic improvement.

01:29:41.140 That that's why they want their kids on these medications. 0.60

01:29:43.220 When you look at the results long-term, they do not improve academics.

01:29:48.300 What they find is that the medications are mostly effective for controlling behavior.

01:29:54.360 So when you have kids who are fidgety, who are having to pay attention to things that

01:29:58.600 are boring, uh, putting them on medications makes them easier to control.

01:30:04.260 Um.

01:30:04.280 So if you're like a bad teacher.

01:30:06.300 Yeah.

01:30:06.600 They're good.

01:30:07.260 They're good.

01:30:07.760 They're, they're great.

01:30:09.140 Um, now the, I mean, there is some, I mean, ADHD is interesting cause it kind of hits at

01:30:15.600 the, um, at like societal expectations, like in, in the U S and in a lot of developed countries,

01:30:22.560 academic success is synonymous with your value as a person.

01:30:27.720 You know, if, if you have to be successful at school, um, to, to be worthy.

01:30:33.240 And a lot of parents, uh, believe that.

01:30:36.180 And so they will push their kids into, you know, subjects and, you know, even university

01:30:41.820 courses, um, because they want to help them.

01:30:45.600 Uh, they think they're helping them by pushing them into these things and the kids are really

01:30:49.280 struggling and they're not interested in it.

01:30:51.080 And you can put someone on a stimulant and it will make something that's boring, more

01:30:55.240 interesting.

01:30:56.120 Definitely.

01:30:56.780 Yeah.

01:30:57.780 And so there's, there's also.

01:30:59.340 You have the world's most boring conversations on cocaine, but you have no idea they're boring.

01:31:03.240 Yeah.

01:31:03.720 Yeah.

01:31:04.400 Yeah.

01:31:04.740 And, and so that's, that's the same with, um, with, with your studies.

01:31:08.580 Um, and then I think another thing that I believe is going on that really doesn't get

01:31:15.380 enough airtime is that actually a lot of lifestyle problems are leading to, uh, ADHD, especially

01:31:23.300 in adults.

01:31:24.060 Um, and the main one being, uh, poor diet and insulin resistance.

01:31:29.200 You know, as people become insulin resistant, um, they end up with more anxiety, more depression

01:31:35.420 and more brain fog.

01:31:37.220 Essentially they, they've, they've broken their body, um, because they've been eating too many

01:31:42.280 refined carbohydrates, added sugars, all of that.

01:31:44.800 And it makes it very hard for, um, neurons to, um, to, to work when, when, when the system

01:31:51.880 is disrupted, there's too much insulin, they can't pull energy.

01:31:54.540 And so I think a lot of people out there have very legitimate, real problems focusing and

01:32:00.040 feeling foggy, but they're not really looking at, at lifestyle issues that are really clear.

01:32:05.660 Um, and oftentimes people, if they do things like, you know, they, they try ketogenic diets.

01:32:12.280 This is like a really big thing in the mental health space and they work for a lot of mental

01:32:17.260 health conditions because they reverse insulin resistance and they improve, uh, energy, you

01:32:23.080 know, the way your cells, um, um, your cells work.

01:32:27.220 And so I think the biggest, the biggest thing that I worry about.

01:32:30.100 So that it, it does work.

01:32:31.420 The low carb diet.

01:32:33.260 Yes.

01:32:34.480 Affects your mental health.

01:32:35.840 Yeah.

01:32:36.120 Yeah.

01:32:36.660 Um, in a major way, some people even call Alzheimer's type three, uh, diabetes because

01:32:42.740 the correlation between the, the worsening of, um, you know, diabetes type two and, and your

01:32:48.780 blood sugar levels correlates with cognitive decline.

01:32:51.180 I mean, the, um, insulin resistance diabetes all has very strong links to cognitive decline.

01:32:58.420 Um, and so when it comes to ADHD, I think the thing that bothers me the most is that there's,

01:33:03.580 there's actually a lot of reversible things that you can do there.

01:33:06.580 You can, you know, if you have brain fog, it's not that you're just like, you know, you're

01:33:10.260 weak and you're not, um, trying hard enough or you're lazy or something like that.

01:33:15.760 But I mean, if you, if you can, if you can look at your diet and there's things you can

01:33:19.700 optimize there, if you can get moving, if you can stop smoking cannabis, um, there's

01:33:24.720 a lot of, and you know, obviously if you can actually try and do work that you genuinely

01:33:29.840 find energizing and that you enjoy, you probably won't need to be on stimulants.

01:33:36.740 Stop smoking cannabis.

01:33:38.540 I thought cannabis was good for you.

01:33:39.960 It's medicine.

01:33:40.560 It's a medicine.

01:33:41.220 It's a herb.

01:33:42.220 A cannabis is actually, this is, this is, you're going to get me on something that I'm

01:33:46.100 really bothered about, um, is that cannabis is, it's a massive gateway drug into the psychiatric

01:33:53.240 industry.

01:33:53.880 Um, it, it, it is a huge trigger for mania and, and schizophrenia.

01:33:59.500 It's, it is completely downplayed by big cannabis because we've decided to legalize it in so many

01:34:06.720 states now.

01:34:08.300 Um, and many people they'll, they'll end up, they'll think it, you know, it's, it's, it's

01:34:15.300 harmless.

01:34:15.820 It's this herb not realizing that the potency has increased like 40 times, uh, since what it

01:34:22.340 used to be.

01:34:22.840 And it, and it, it just, it triggers mania and psychosis.

01:34:26.180 And then the doctors will see them and the doctors will downplay the role of cannabis

01:34:29.880 and they'll say, oh, you have schizophrenia or you have bipolar.

01:34:33.660 And then they put them on an antipsychotic.

01:34:35.680 And then this person just ends up on antipsychotics for a really long period of time when really

01:34:41.140 the issue was that they had a psychotic reaction.

01:34:44.780 So you believe that cannabis use can lead to schizophrenia?

01:34:51.500 I, I wouldn't say schizophrenia.

01:34:53.620 I would say, I believe that cannabis use can cause psychosis and that psychosis can endure

01:34:58.920 sometimes for like a year or two after they have the psychotic break.

01:35:03.120 Um, because to say something is schizo, it's schizophrenia makes it sound like, you know, it's a,

01:35:09.380 they just had a broken brain.

01:35:10.820 You know, their, their brain was broken and it was just inevitable to happen.

01:35:14.640 I've worked with patients who have smoked cannabis.

01:35:17.560 They've had psychotic reactions.

01:35:20.060 And, um, even after they've come off the cannabis for a period of like a year or two,

01:35:26.160 they've still experienced periodic, uh, episodes of psychosis before it fizzled out.

01:35:31.520 The only way I can understand that is that that drug, when they had that psychotic episode,

01:35:36.220 it actually damaged their brain.

01:35:37.900 It was like a, it was like a big hit and it took them a couple of years afterwards to

01:35:43.140 fully recover from that.

01:35:44.380 And I've looked into this with many other people who actually work in this space and they see

01:35:48.960 that when you have a psychotic reaction, uh, to cannabis, it can sometimes take months or

01:35:54.660 even a year or two to fully go away.

01:35:56.580 I think doctors misdiagnose that and tell someone, this is a sign you have a broken brain.

01:36:01.160 You have schizophrenia time to put you on the drug.

01:36:03.260 Um, so you're saying that the drug companies wouldn't necessarily be opposed to marijuana

01:36:09.360 legalization.

01:36:10.280 No, no, it's, it's, it's, it's creating customers.

01:36:13.820 Do you really think that?

01:36:15.560 I mean, I don't know.

01:36:16.680 That's really dark.

01:36:18.340 Well, I don't think they, uh, you know, I don't know if there's like a drug company lobbyist

01:36:22.900 out there just being like, Hey, you know, we really want to kind of push this knowingly,

01:36:27.100 but it sure helps them that big cannabis is out there and it is sowing a message that essentially

01:36:33.540 this, these drugs are safe herbs.

01:36:35.320 These drugs are medicine when they're, I mean, they're Frankenstein drugs now.

01:36:39.760 I mean, they're 40 times more potent than, than how they used to be.

01:36:45.180 So just to bottom line it as a practicing licensed psychiatrist, would you ever prescribe

01:36:49.300 cannabis to a patient for mental illness?

01:36:52.260 No, it doesn't make any sense at all.

01:36:55.780 Would you prescribe SSRIs?

01:36:58.380 So this is where there's a bit more, um, nuance here.

01:37:04.040 I think we have to use every tool that we have.

01:37:08.280 And I mean, there are a lot of people out there who will say, I mean, the, the, the fact

01:37:13.540 is these drugs have saved people's lives.

01:37:15.780 I can say that, you know, even with a lot of the concern that, you know, the drug effect

01:37:20.200 wears off, but imagine someone who they come in and they're unhappy.

01:37:28.880 And, and, and this is, this is rare.

01:37:31.780 You talk to them about their life.

01:37:33.940 There's no relationship issues going on.

01:37:36.020 It looks really good.

01:37:37.400 Work's fine.

01:37:38.740 You've tried to optimize their health.

01:37:40.580 You've done everything that you could and they're still unhappy.

01:37:44.780 Something is still going on.

01:37:46.200 You know, maybe they have really severe OCD or something like that.

01:37:50.720 I'm not going to sit there and just say, I'm not going to give you any treatment.

01:37:54.740 If I've tried all of the non-drug strategies to help you and you're still suffering, I will

01:37:59.340 give you informed consent about the medication.

01:38:01.980 I will put you on it and I'll monitor you and I'll, I'll do my best to make sure that you're,

01:38:06.600 that you're functioning.

01:38:07.620 And, you know, if there's side effects that come up, I'll catch them early.

01:38:11.460 My issue with the medications is that they're used first up without anyone trying with,

01:38:17.700 with minimal, with, with lip service really to, to helping people with non-drug means first.

01:38:24.260 But if you've done all of that and it's still not working, I think it makes sense to, to

01:38:29.640 use a drug to make someone more functional.

01:38:31.420 So if someone goes to your, uh, practice, you said your, your current practice is helping

01:38:39.620 people get off these drugs.

01:38:41.480 Yeah.

01:38:42.540 What does that look like?

01:38:44.120 Like, just give us the kind of typical patient who approaches you.

01:38:47.220 How long has this person been on the drugs?

01:38:50.220 Why does this person want to get off the drugs?

01:38:52.040 And how does this person get off the drugs?

01:38:55.180 Yeah.

01:38:55.620 So a typical person might be a, you know, a middle-aged, a middle-aged woman who was put 0.99

01:39:01.260 on a medication during a divorce.

01:39:04.060 Um, you know, she's been on it for maybe 15 years or so.

01:39:07.400 And she's starting to notice that whatever she does with the medications, it's not working.

01:39:13.740 You know, she, you know, she's gone up on the dose, she's maxed out, she started a new

01:39:17.920 one and she just feels terrible.

01:39:20.260 Uh, she, she has, she has brain fog, she has low energy and she feels numb.

01:39:26.920 And, and she's realized essentially that, you know, psychiatry has a kind of failed her,

01:39:36.340 you know, that the answer to her solutions aren't really, aren't really drugs anymore.

01:39:40.740 And so she'll, she'll come to us in this state.

01:39:42.800 And what we do is we look at the drugs she's on. 0.85

01:39:45.800 Usually she's on several.

01:39:47.100 And then we'll just start to identify which drug is causing, it's most likely to be causing

01:39:51.420 a problem, uh, the most amount of your problems.

01:39:54.740 And we start there and we slowly taper that off.

01:39:57.720 Some drugs you can taper quite quickly.

01:39:59.620 Others can take years to come off.

01:40:01.460 Like things like benzos and SSRIs, they're much harder.

01:40:04.320 And so we'll work with patients for several years, slowly untangling the medication, uh,

01:40:10.480 regimen, you know, meeting with them very frequently until we, we ease them off.

01:40:14.620 At the same time, we introduce them to non-drug approaches to managing their mental health.

01:40:20.200 If they need to do dietary, uh, modifications, you know, lifestyle changes, if they need to

01:40:24.960 learn some, um, uh, uh, sleep, if we need to look at some of the substances that they're

01:40:30.220 using, we'll, we'll use all of our non-drug tools while we're bringing them off the medications.

01:40:36.680 How long does it take to taper off the drug itself?

01:40:42.760 So if you've been on these medications for several years, most people are coming off at

01:40:49.220 around 18 to 24 months.

01:40:52.940 Wow.

01:40:53.800 Yeah.

01:40:54.100 So this, this is what I see.

01:40:55.340 And I want to give a bit of nuance here.

01:40:57.060 There's, it's hard to know why it's so hard for some people to come off.

01:41:04.160 I mean, there are some people, and for reasons I don't understand, their brains are really

01:41:07.600 elastic.

01:41:08.480 They might be able to come off a drug that they've been on for years really quickly.

01:41:11.860 They have awful withdrawal for, for a couple of months, and then they kind of, they come

01:41:16.400 back together.

01:41:17.400 But then there's another group of people that when they try that, the suffering doesn't

01:41:21.860 end.

01:41:22.200 And it's just, it's brutal and the withdrawal doesn't go away and then they have to come

01:41:25.960 back on.

01:41:26.860 And for them, it can take them years to come off.

01:41:29.760 Currently, I have no real way of predicting who is going to have an easy withdrawal and

01:41:34.720 who's going to have a difficult withdrawal.

01:41:36.480 Who's not related to age, sex, health?

01:41:39.960 Not in a way that fully accounts for the variability.

01:41:43.680 Like in general, young people have an easier go.

01:41:45.860 In general, people who have been on the drug for a shorter period of time, it kind of skews

01:41:52.300 things.

01:41:52.800 But I've also seen young people who've been on the drug for not that long have a hell

01:41:57.020 of a time coming off as well.

01:41:59.720 And so it is, it's hard for me to predict.

01:42:02.980 But because I've worked with so many people who have developed this, essentially this brain

01:42:07.360 injury called protracted withdrawal.

01:42:09.180 The way I've come to think about this is everyone needs to come off the medications

01:42:15.740 gradually in a way that doesn't trigger severe withdrawal.

01:42:19.280 That's kind of the measure.

01:42:20.920 You know, you do like a 10% reduction, you see how they go.

01:42:23.840 Okay, you're fine.

01:42:24.560 We do another one.

01:42:25.780 But once they start to develop severe withdrawal, I then slow it down and I do smaller and smaller

01:42:30.920 reductions to get them completely off without severe withdrawal.

01:42:38.140 So they're not at risk of this neurological injury called protracted withdrawal and they're

01:42:43.280 able to work and they're able to fulfill their household duties and all of that.

01:42:46.860 That's the way it should be done.

01:42:50.120 So someone remains functional while the taper is going on.

01:42:54.720 How do they feel when they're off, when they're finally done?

01:42:57.220 A lot of them feel great, especially if they've, because people come to me because they're

01:43:03.980 dealing with side effects.

01:43:05.340 You know, the drugs are actively harming them.

01:43:08.040 They feel foggy and fatigued.

01:43:10.060 And then to have that monkey off their back, they're not dealing with the side effects.

01:43:14.480 But then they also have that, you know, the self-esteem issues.

01:43:19.500 Some people, you know, they just go, I'm not broken.

01:43:24.180 I don't want to be on a drug.

01:43:25.420 I don't believe there's anything wrong with me.

01:43:27.080 So they love that.

01:43:28.360 They love that they can go and travel and they don't need to worry about losing a prescription

01:43:31.920 or the prescription being stolen from them.

01:43:35.980 And they love not having to line up at the pharmacy.

01:43:40.700 They love not having to worry about the long-term side effects of these medications on their brain.

01:43:47.740 And so many people are really happy.

01:43:50.320 How does being on SSRIs affect people's relationships?

01:43:57.000 So the question, yeah, I mean, it's, it's a question really about how does emotional blunting affect your ability to connect with one another?

01:44:10.540 Yeah.

01:44:11.520 I guess you just answered the question.

01:44:13.240 And so there's, there is a Facebook group out there called Marriage is Destroyed by SSRIs. 0.75

01:44:21.500 And I think it has like nearly 5,000 people in there.

01:44:24.220 And the stories you hear there are that, you know, we were in a relationship.

01:44:29.180 My spouse was, you know, depressed.

01:44:31.060 They got put on a medication.

01:44:32.220 And so in some instances, they'll say that the person became emotionally distant.

01:44:39.260 They stopped being intuitive about their partner.

01:44:42.260 They stopped recognizing that there were issues going on and they became kind of harsh and neglectful.

01:44:52.280 And so I think it can get in the way of empathy.

01:44:57.980 And this was, I mean, this is a funny story actually, because my wife and I, we both tried Zoloft.

01:45:03.140 We got it from a friend of ours when we were in our residency because I wanted to see what it was like, these medications.

01:45:12.100 I was prescribing them to people.

01:45:13.220 That's a benzodiazepine.

01:45:14.300 No, this is an SSRI.

01:45:15.640 Oh, okay.

01:45:16.020 Yeah, so I took an SSRI because I just wanted to see what it was like.

01:45:20.660 And she hated me when I was on Zoloft.

01:45:24.820 She did?

01:45:25.740 Why?

01:45:26.720 Well, she felt like I didn't really care about her anymore.

01:45:32.580 Like she would, you know, we would be having like, you know, she'd be upset about something.

01:45:37.900 I don't know, the kitchen was dirty and I'd left a mess and she'd be talking to me. 0.96

01:45:41.420 And I'd just be like so zoned out, not caring about her emotions, emotionless, not aware, not being able to intuit things.

01:45:49.420 Because in the past, like if I walked into the house and I could pick up that she was upset and walk over to her and say, hey, you know, what's going on?

01:45:55.580 I sense something is wrong.

01:45:58.680 Let's talk about it.

01:45:59.660 That went away.

01:46:01.120 That ability to kind of detect, you know, subtle kind of emotional changes in her went away and she hated that.

01:46:08.420 How long were you on it?

01:46:09.320 I think two to three weeks.

01:46:12.800 And then, I mean, that was enough of an experience to kind of feel what that was like.

01:46:19.680 And so.

01:46:21.540 So you took it because you're going to be prescribing it and you wanted to know what it was.

01:46:25.180 Yeah.

01:46:25.620 And my professors made me feel like this was like the biggest lunatic idea ever.

01:46:31.480 Seriously?

01:46:31.880 Yeah.

01:46:32.300 Yeah.

01:46:32.940 It was like, these are serious medications.

01:46:34.680 You shouldn't be taking them.

01:46:35.680 But I was just like, I need to know what this experience is like if I'm going to prescribe them.

01:46:40.840 It's called empathy.

01:46:41.620 Yeah.

01:46:41.920 Yeah.

01:46:42.280 Yeah.

01:46:43.240 So I've taken several psychiatric medications because I think it's really important that I know what they feel like.

01:46:49.000 Yes, I agree.

01:46:49.760 What else have you taken?

01:46:51.400 I've taken like metazapine.

01:46:53.600 I've taken trazodone.

01:46:54.820 What are those?

01:46:55.560 These are antidepressants and sedatives.

01:46:57.900 And I've taken benzodiazepines.

01:47:00.260 Like.

01:47:00.540 What do you think of those?

01:47:01.880 They may be worse, to be honest.

01:47:03.800 The benzos were actually prescribed to me because after, and this is crazy because I'm a drug side effect guy that this happened to me.

01:47:11.260 Life is wild.

01:47:12.440 Yeah.

01:47:13.200 So after my daughter was born, I just started working at the FDA.

01:47:17.160 And, you know, I was a clinician.

01:47:18.800 That's what I was used to.

01:47:21.320 And all of a sudden I was a drug regulator doing reports every day.

01:47:24.340 And that was really stressful to have a new kid and have a new job.

01:47:28.700 And I was also totally overdoing it on stimulants.

01:47:32.400 Like I was drinking a large cup of coffee in the morning, two Diet Cokes during the day.

01:47:36.580 I was probably packing like, you know, five Zins in my mouth throughout the day.

01:47:41.020 First of all, Zins are only for rectal use.

01:47:43.280 I don't know if you knew that.

01:47:44.960 You should be using ALP.

01:47:46.020 You should be using ALP.

01:47:46.780 Okay.

01:47:47.200 Yeah.

01:47:47.360 Sorry.

01:47:47.640 Excuse me.

01:47:48.140 Yeah.

01:47:49.080 And so my sleep deteriorated.

01:47:51.260 I was having a really hard time sleeping just with all of the pressure and my daughter waking up in the middle of the night.

01:47:56.160 So I got a script for Xanax from a nurse practitioner.

01:47:59.160 And I would just take it once a night.

01:48:01.280 And then very soon it became every other night.

01:48:04.280 And then very soon it became every night.

01:48:07.040 And it slowly wore off.

01:48:10.040 And I started to become more anxious over time.

01:48:12.740 And this is what happens with benzos.

01:48:14.380 Because I would be sitting there trying to concentrate on my reports and I'd be getting obsessive thoughts about embarrassing things that had happened in the past.

01:48:24.680 I mean, it was like torturous, like just like they would just spring into my mind.

01:48:29.240 And thankfully I had the foresight to realize that the drug was actually making me more anxious.

01:48:35.280 Yes.

01:48:35.680 And I see this with a lot of my patients.

01:48:37.760 I was able to come off fairly quickly.

01:48:39.760 Not many people aren't.

01:48:42.580 But that experience really taught me about how easy it is for these drugs to make you worse.

01:48:51.880 And I mean, if I didn't know what I was doing and I wasn't interested in drug side effects, I could have gone in to see a doctor and they would have said,

01:48:58.600 Oh, you've developed an anxiety disorder.

01:49:01.260 You know, here's some Zoloft.

01:49:02.440 And then you get on this prescribing cascade where you got started on one drug, you had a side effect, and then you get started on another one.

01:49:10.060 And before you know it, you're taking multiple meds.

01:49:13.840 So you say you would go into a doctor and tell them this, but now post-COVID, there's something called telehealth.

01:49:22.960 And my impression is the bar has dropped maybe.

01:49:27.420 What is telehealth?

01:49:29.160 And how has it affected this business?

01:49:31.620 I mean, telehealth is essentially being able to get medicines virtually, sometimes without even seeing a clinician.

01:49:38.860 And it has essentially just exacerbated all the worst parts about the American healthcare system.

01:49:44.720 I recently did an investigation on a company.

01:49:48.120 I think it's called HIMSS.

01:49:50.280 The female version is for hers. 0.99

01:49:52.860 These are essentially online telehealth companies that sell lifestyle drugs.

01:49:57.400 Things like finasteride for male patent baldness.

01:50:01.120 But they also sell antidepressants.

01:50:04.240 And when I went through there...

01:50:07.160 But they're drug sellers. 0.99

01:50:07.780 They don't do orthopedic surgery or anything like that.

01:50:10.400 They're drug sellers. 0.99

01:50:11.480 Yeah.

01:50:11.620 They are like a Silicon Valley startup to essentially just make it really easy to get certain drugs.

01:50:20.460 And I was obviously horrified about this because I think psychiatric drugs are massively overprescribed.

01:50:27.620 And so I wanted to investigate what the oversight was like.

01:50:32.140 And I essentially, I ended up signing up to make an account.

01:50:36.840 I filled out a questionnaire.

01:50:38.800 I supposedly spoke with a nurse practitioner on a chat, which could have just been boilerplate AI-generated text.

01:50:46.020 They diagnosed me with depression.

01:50:48.560 And then they sent me Lexapro in the mail three days later.

01:50:51.740 And I never even saw anyone.

01:50:53.400 And then there was just like a little hyperlink that said, click here to learn about the side effects.

01:50:58.140 I videotaped the whole thing and I put it on my YouTube channel.

01:51:02.140 But that is awful.

01:51:05.300 I mean, that is not the kind of care that you would ever want for someone that you love.

01:51:10.760 Well, that's not care.

01:51:11.920 No, it's not care.

01:51:12.560 It's drug dispensing.

01:51:13.820 It's drug dispensing and just milking insurance because you can just...

01:51:18.140 The person pays you 150 bucks a month or whatever it is.

01:51:23.560 And you just keep on sending them SSRIs without really trying to help them at all.

01:51:31.660 And remember, these are the drugs that cause PSSD and can cause homicide, homicidal behavior and can cause brain injury when people try and come off of them.

01:51:40.800 And no one is even sitting with them to say, hey, I really need to make sure that you understand what you're getting into.

01:51:46.340 I really need to make sure that you understand that there are alternatives for this that are safer.

01:51:51.020 However, these companies have just like, you know, there's like a PDF that you could read on the way to like the checkout page.

01:51:58.500 And they're just like, okay, our job is done here.

01:52:01.060 But what's wild is after, you know, an hour and a half of telling me, and I think making an airtight case that these drugs are really dangerous and are grossly overprescribed, you're describing changes to the system that make it easier.

01:52:17.540 That guarantee their use is more widespread and less regulated and less oversight and less actual care.

01:52:26.460 I mean, it's kind of weird that the evidence is in, it sounds like.

01:52:29.880 This is very serious.

01:52:31.980 But not only are we not clamping down, we're making it easier for people to get it.

01:52:37.560 Yeah.

01:52:38.180 Yeah, we are.

01:52:41.400 What did, something just happened, I don't fully understand it, in the state of Illinois, Governor J.B. Pritzker, who wants to run for president, Democrat, signed a bill that brings some of this into the schools.

01:52:53.920 Tell us what that is.

01:52:55.020 So it was a bill mandating mental health screening for children as young as third grade in the state of Illinois.

01:53:05.980 And so this was in response to statistics showing that mental health is worsening in the state, which are true. 0.99

01:53:12.380 Of course.

01:53:12.840 And so their response was, well, we need to get into the classroom and we need to make these kids fill out mental health screeners to see if they have anxiety or to see if they have depression with the goal that that is going to improve mental health outcomes.

01:53:30.680 Because if you detect it, you can treat it. 0.81

01:53:33.100 Now, why I think this is the dumbest law ever, and it's going to lead to more problems, is our mental health care system is so dysfunctional. 0.91

01:53:45.660 Like screening is not a bad thing. 0.97

01:53:47.260 You know, knowing that someone is depressed or anxious, that's not inherently bad.

01:53:52.480 I mean, we want to help people.

01:53:54.460 Yes.

01:53:54.720 But what is going to happen with a law like this is it's going to end up just scaring parents.

01:53:59.020 They're going to be saying, oh, you know, your kid has anxiety and depression.

01:54:01.420 You should get that taken care of before they start becoming suicidal.

01:54:05.220 They will go into a mental health care system, which is already broken, highly transactional, where doctors will have limited face time and will lean on prescribing medications.

01:54:18.800 I'm all for screening, but not when the mental health care system is dysfunctional.

01:54:24.120 It's just funneling people into a broken system.

01:54:26.160 But why, so they're targeting kids for this.

01:54:29.480 Yeah.

01:54:30.820 Did anyone say anything about it?

01:54:34.980 No.

01:54:37.780 This just seems to be going ahead as if it's the greatest thing ever.

01:54:42.140 But the irony is that the people who, I mean, there are all kinds of people grandstanding about, quote, mental health.

01:54:46.900 Like, and they're all the same people who are pushing drugs that degrade mental health and hurt people.

01:54:52.880 Have you noticed this?

01:54:54.260 Yes.

01:54:54.520 People say, do we have a mental health crisis in this country?

01:54:57.320 Well, yes, I couldn't agree more.

01:55:00.220 But those people seem totally uninterested in fixing it.

01:55:03.800 They seem to be intent on making it worse.

01:55:07.300 I mean, it's grandstanding.

01:55:09.740 I mean, that is what it is.

01:55:11.060 It is, you know, talking about mental health and being an advocate for mental health is one of the, you know, it's this, you know, this, you know, this morally righteous thing to do.

01:55:23.280 And people want to jump on that bandwagon.

01:55:25.540 And this seems like, oh, this is like, you know, this is a good thing for me to be doing.

01:55:28.700 I'm such a good person, not understanding that the downstream effects can be really harmful.

01:55:33.440 It's like advocates for the homeless.

01:55:36.440 More of those we have, the more homeless we have.

01:55:38.580 Yeah.

01:55:38.680 Okay, so last question.

01:55:41.940 You do this for a living.

01:55:44.960 And I think unusually for a psychiatrist, you seem to really care about the outcome and whether people are thriving or not, which is supposed to be the goal of the business is to help people thrive.

01:55:56.420 So, what advice would you give to people who are anxious or depressed or sad or struggling with what we call mental health?

01:56:05.320 Like, what are the ways to restore happiness and vigor to a human life?

01:56:13.640 I would say, I think a lot of mental health comes down to three things.

01:56:20.260 I think it comes down to your relationships.

01:56:22.180 I think it comes down to your purpose and what you do.

01:56:24.560 And I think it comes down to your physical health.

01:56:27.120 And so, I would want the person to audit their life.

01:56:30.660 How am I doing in these three areas?

01:56:33.580 And to treat the root causes, you know, don't let someone tell you you have a chemical imbalance.

01:56:38.980 If you look at your life and, you know, you're using drugs that can, you know, mess with your chemistry, address that.

01:56:46.580 If you're eating foods that, you know, if you have like pre-diabetes or, and because your diet is off, you know, fix your diet, get moving, get in the sun, do the things that our bodies are naturally designed to do.

01:57:00.000 So, so work on your health and then just think about the next thing that needs to be addressed.

01:57:05.180 You know, are you having problems with loneliness and relationships?

01:57:08.960 You can find people that can help you with that problem.

01:57:12.000 It's not like a bullshit therapist, but someone that actually has a track record of helping with your relationships or helping with connections.

01:57:19.140 If you're having difficulty at work, you can find coaches that actually have a track record of helping you find more meaning in your work as well.

01:57:28.020 And so, what I tell people is that there's no, don't believe the story that there is this magic pill that is going to fix pretty much the most complicated issues in your life.

01:57:37.300 Right.

01:57:38.040 You know, your ability to connect, your ability to find meaning and purpose, you know, your health.

01:57:42.580 There's no magic pill for that.

01:57:44.000 But these things are cultivated over decades with, you know, attention and effort.

01:57:49.780 They're the most important things in your life.

01:57:52.240 Just start, start somewhere.

01:57:54.840 Are you confident that AI therapy will help people's mental health?

01:58:01.360 Why are you laughing?

01:58:02.580 Yeah.

01:58:02.840 This is the new frontier.

01:58:03.780 I believe it's very well funded.

01:58:06.180 Yeah.

01:58:06.460 That is so disturbing because I feel like AI therapy is like the most, like, it just, it doesn't give you like, it just affirms what you put into it as well.

01:58:20.520 It's just like, oh yeah, that's so hard.

01:58:22.140 That's so rough.

01:58:22.820 That must feel so bad.

01:58:24.220 It's, it's, I don't know.

01:58:25.960 It's, it's totally disturbing.

01:58:28.600 And like dystopian.

01:58:30.800 Yeah.

01:58:31.660 Yeah.

01:58:31.900 It talked to the machine.

01:58:33.320 That's worse than talk to the hand.

01:58:35.080 Yeah.

01:58:35.240 But it affirms what you put into it.

01:58:38.720 Can you flesh it out a little bit?

01:58:41.500 Well, let's say you are, you know, you, you have a conflict with like your spouse.

01:58:46.240 Oh my God, I was so frustrated that, you know, they did this and that.

01:58:50.180 It could just say, yeah, that must be, you know, that must just be so frustrating.

01:58:53.680 Isn't that a, isn't what we're supposed to do is affirm people in their beliefs?

01:58:58.360 No, we need a help.

01:58:59.860 No, no, no.

01:59:01.120 You sound mean.

01:59:02.060 Yeah, I'm, I am, I am, I am mean, but that's, that's what you need.

01:59:06.280 You, you, you, you need, you know, you, you almost need that paternal energy in there where

01:59:11.440 someone is, is going to hold your feet to the fire and make you, you know, push you,

01:59:16.220 make you grow, kind of encourage you to get outside of your comfort zone.

01:59:19.980 You don't need that, that affirming energy. 0.99

01:59:23.140 So it's not helpful to say, yes, you are a shitty person and that's okay. 0.99

01:59:27.420 Not all the time. 0.99

01:59:29.800 Yeah.

01:59:31.260 Yeah.

01:59:31.920 How, uh, how unpopular are you among other psychiatrists?

01:59:36.660 Yeah.

01:59:37.180 Yeah.

01:59:37.360 I'm unpopular amongst other psychiatrists and also in the media.

01:59:41.120 I'm a, I'm a dangerous person.

01:59:43.160 Why?

01:59:43.680 Yeah.

01:59:44.340 Because I'm scaring people away from life-saving drugs and I'm stigmatizing them because I

01:59:50.040 have a message that mental illness is much more than just chemicals in the brain and that

01:59:55.440 there are other non-drug approaches that can be helpful.

01:59:58.940 And that's bad?

01:59:59.880 That is bad.

02:00:00.900 So anyone who says your problems are more complicated than a single pill can solve,

02:00:05.220 that person is dangerous.

02:00:07.460 Yeah.

02:00:07.780 Yeah.

02:00:07.960 That person is dangerous.

02:00:09.160 The person doesn't get it.

02:00:10.280 Um, and, um, they're making people with mental illness feel bad about themselves because gosh,

02:00:17.240 you should just let them accept that they have a broken brain and there's nothing they

02:00:20.700 can do about it.

02:00:21.480 And to encourage them to look at it otherwise, it's just to, to harm them.

02:00:27.880 You know, it's, it's, it's to make them feel bad about something that they can't change.

02:00:32.360 Boy, that's, that's the cruelest approach I can imagine to human suffering.

02:00:37.440 I mean, if you took that approach to cancer, what would that look like?

02:00:42.500 You've got cancer and here comes Dr. Yosef saying, actually, I, I could help you and take

02:00:48.980 the tumor out.

02:00:49.820 And then a bunch of screechy ladies are like, that's mean. 1.00

02:00:53.040 Yeah.

02:00:53.380 You got to affirm the person's cancer.

02:00:55.660 Affirm their cancer.

02:00:56.300 Yeah.

02:00:56.880 Yeah.

02:00:57.120 I, I really, I hope this, uh, interview is not throttled.

02:01:04.820 I really appreciate your bravery and your directness and your very obvious compassion

02:01:09.660 and empathy.

02:01:10.260 I don't think you're a mean person, obviously.

02:01:11.900 You didn't go into this to hurt people, clearly.

02:01:16.160 Yeah.

02:01:16.720 So thank you.

02:01:17.940 Thank you for having me.

02:01:18.980 We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify company that we use every day.

02:01:27.180 We know the people who run it, good people while you're here, do us a favor, hit, follow

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The Tucker Carlson Show - August 29, 2025

SSRIs and School Shootings, FDA Corruption, and Why Everyone on Anti-Depressants Is Totally Unhappy

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