The Truth with Lisa Boothe: Mental Health & Psychiatric Drugs: The Truth About Over-Prescription

4/21/202634 mincomplete

Transcript

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Guaranteed human. Welcome to The Truth with Lisa Booth, where we get to the heart
0:06of the issues that matter to you.
0:09Today, we're talking about mental health.
0:10The nation has been grappling with the heartbreaking tragedy surrounding the deaths of Hollywood icon
0:17Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, allegedly at the hands of their son, Nick, who
0:22has struggled with schizophrenia, substance abuse, and psychiatric medication adjustments.
0:28But this story has really, once again, thrust America's mental health crisis into the spotlight.
0:36Today, we're joined by board -certified psychiatrist and former FDA medical officer, Dr.
0:42Joseph Witt -During. Dr. Joseph is a leading voice challenging the overprescription of psychiatric drugs
0:49from the glamorization of SSRIs on TikTok among young women to sort of the hidden
0:55risks of long -lasting use use of some of these drugs, the potential push to
1:02homicidal tendencies as well, the things that we don't really talk about as a society
1:07now that a lot of these drugs have been mainstreamed.
1:11They're discussed very casually and in a cavalier way.
1:14So we're going to talk about this surge in use, what it means for you,
1:19what it means for the country, and also how big pharma has fueled a lot
1:24of it. So stay tuned for Dr.
1:26Joseph Witt -During. Well, Dr.
1:33Joseph Witt -During, it's great to have you on the show, sir.
1:36You've been talking about a lot of important things in the country, just over -dependency
1:41on drugs, particularly mental health drugs.
1:45So really looking forward to getting your insight into all of this.
1:48Thanks for having me, Lisa.
1:50The concepts of mental health, as well as some of these psychiatric drugs, it's really
1:54on everyone's radar after the tragic deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, allegedly
2:01at the hands of his son, Nick, who has a long history of substance abuse,
2:06mental health struggles, also reported schizophrenia diagnosis, past use of a lot of different drugs
2:12for those things, antidepressant, psychiatric drugs.
2:17From your work as a former FDA officer and a psychiatrist who has been sounding
2:22the alarm on all this stuff, what does this tragedy reveal about the risks of
2:27sort of over -reliance on medications for some of these complex health issues?
2:32Yeah, Lisa. So, you know, we often, typically in a case like this, we wouldn't
2:37even be talking about psychiatric medications, you know, and a man who, you know, a
2:41troubled man with a history of drug abuse, I think most people would say, well,
2:44you know, maybe it was some illegal drugs he may have been using or maybe
2:49there was some animosity between the parents.
2:52I mean, these things happen.
2:53Unfortunately, murder happens within families.
2:55The only reason why we're talking about psychiatric medications is I think TMZ got the
3:01scoop on this and they found out from a source that he had just been
3:06in a very elite psychiatric institution and while he was there, he was having trouble
3:15with medications and so with the diagnosis of schizophrenia, we immediately go to, well, he
3:22was probably having trouble with antipsychotics.
3:24It could have been some other medications as well and so the reason everyone's talking
3:28about psychiatric meds is that antipsychotics in rare instances can make people homicidal.
3:35They have a long history of doing this that is not disputed.
3:39This is also in the drug labels for several of these medications for homicidality and
3:46suicidality and that makes this story really interesting from a drug safety perspective because now,
3:56you know, with the, I guess, the defense for Nick and also just figuring out
4:02what happened, they need to dive into, you know, is there, were there signs when
4:09he was hospitalized that these drugs were making his mood unstable?
4:13Should he have been let out of the hospital, you know, for this Christmas party?
4:18And then also, is there an alternative explanation for him doing this apart from mood
4:27instability from the drugs, you know, and they're going to have to start looking at,
4:30you know, what was his relationship like with his parents?
4:33Was it strained? Were they talking about, I don't know, like a will or something
4:37like that? Because it is possible and this has been shown in multiple lawsuits in
4:44the past that these drugs actually can be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
4:49They can be the causal factor for driving violent events like this.
4:54You know, look, I do think sometimes people have, you know, chemical imbalances, but I
4:58think the challenge we're facing is they're given out like way too, it's too cavalier,
5:03right? They're not taking it seriously, the impact that these drugs can have on the
5:07body and then you're layering them too, right?
5:09So, you know, Nick, if he's on antidepressants and then they're giving him drugs for
5:15schizophrenia, like how do some of these drugs overlap with one another?
5:19I imagine, you know, the more you're taking, obviously, the bigger impact to the body
5:23and the mind. yes lisa you're right um you know the the point that you
5:29brought up on like layering these drugs is is a really good one because these
5:34drugs are never studied in combination that that's not how the fda looks at them
5:40and it is very common for people to accumulate drugs i won't be surprised when
5:45we finally get um maybe some of the uh reports from the court when this
5:50case goes to trial that nick may have been on five different medications because i
5:54certainly see that a lot of the time and um there is mass overuse of
6:01these medications now this this is i think people often suspect this but they assume
6:08that it's safe they they say well yes we use a lot of these medications
6:12but it must be because they're safe it must be because we've got great long
6:16-term data on how these drugs help people over time and um you know the
6:20combination of medications we must have data for that listen i've been at the fda
6:25i've worked in several pharmaceutical companies directly on psychiatric drugs we don't have any evidence
6:31that these medications work any longer than about a year um so that's the that's
6:36the first thing that's that's really concerning there and so the reason that these drugs
6:42are used so much it's not because there's a great evidence base supporting long -term
6:46use and combination it's really because of commercial factors you know back in the 90s
6:51we had health insurance companies sort of conglomerate and they started to control the flow
6:58of patients and they were able to have doctors they were able to bid down
7:02the price of reimbursement for visits and for many doctors to make ends meet that
7:07meant they had to see four patients in an hour and that's still the system
7:10we're in today and when you're dealing with patients who have emotional problems and you
7:14have 15 minutes to help them really the only thing you can do is prescribe
7:19a medication there's no time to really understand someone's problems there's no time to motivate
7:23them to do tried and true non -drug approaches whether it's dietary modification or exercise
7:29or socially reconnecting them with people or doing even things like mind body work like
7:34like breathing and meditation that that goes out the window all you can essentially do
7:40is put someone on a medication and adjust the dose up and down or hold
7:44it the same that is why we have 15 percent of americans on these medications
7:48and five percent of kids on them it's not because the evidence base really supports
7:53it or is strong it's because of an economic convenience you know it's interesting because
7:59we hear all these stories i wish i could remember i was reading a column
8:02a woman posted it was in you know pretty major publication um i read it
8:07uh like a week or so ago i'm just remembering it now at the top
8:10of my head um and she was writing uh you know posted it in response
8:14to the nick reiner story and and was reminding people how you know she got
8:19her son on antidepressants and they encouraged her to get her son on all these
8:22different things and it just like totally made him worse um and you know there's
8:26also articles about uh this you know chris burks uh she lost her 19 year
8:33old son bryson to suicide and he you know he's a football player full of
8:38energy and all these different things and he was actually given antidepressants not for depression
8:43but as a treatment for the pain and then he tapered off the medication but
8:47then ended up committing suicide um after that you know there's a lot of danger
8:52in sort of tapering off of these drugs as well um sort of what goes
8:59through the the mind or or you know talk about sort of the impact on
9:02the body of that time as well yeah yeah these are two really good um
9:08stories to talk about that people don't often hear about from their doctors and so
9:14you know to touch briefly on the first one these drugs can definitely make people
9:18worse in the short term um i mean that's why they have um black box
9:23warnings on them they and when you look at the placebo controlled trials you know
9:28this is you know getting a group of people who are put on a placebo
9:32a sugar pill and you compare them to a group of people put on like
9:35the ssris there are more suicide attempts on the group uh who are taking the
9:41antidepressants and so that's very disturbing because what it's showing is that yes these drugs
9:47they they do lower kind of the symptoms of depression by kind of muting emotions
9:52but that doesn't actually confer that doesn't lead to less suicide in fact it makes
9:58it worse and so when you tell me the story about this woman whose kid
10:01got worse on the drugs and became more suicidal that's the average that that is
10:06actually the norm for children on these medications which is why it's insane it's absolutely
10:12insane that we have five percent of our kids on them and then when we
10:16transition over and we talk about this other case of this uh this uh healthy
10:21football uh youth who came off the i think it was symbol of the pain
10:25and he became suicidal you know this is my bread and butter this is what
10:31i do i help people come off psychiatric medications and it's becoming more widely talked
10:37about now that if you come off these medications too quickly you can actually cause
10:41a neurological injury called protracted withdrawal which is like having a concussion it's like you
10:47get hit in the head really hard and it can be severely destabilizing you There's
10:52something about severe withdrawal symptoms in a small group of people that can set off
10:57this electrical storm in the brain that is just very harmful.
11:02And, you know, in my space, a lot of people become very suicidal when they're
11:08pulled off these medications too quickly.
11:10Quick break. If you like what you're hearing, please share on social media or send
11:13it to your family and friends.
11:16And there's a difference too.
11:19I mean, isn't it more dangerous for young people than the adults on some of
11:23these drugs as well? Because, you know, obviously their minds are forming, their brains are
11:28forming. You know, maybe talk about a little bit of the differences between or are
11:32they or are there differences?
11:35You know, walk us through that.
11:36I mean, there's a lot of concerning data about the effects of antidepressants on the
11:42developing mind. And I think, gosh, the best way to actually look at this is
11:50with the MRI studies. And so just going back to human babies who are born
11:57to mothers exposed to SSRIs.
12:00So all of these drugs cross the placenta.
12:02When they do MRI studies of the babies and they compare them to babies who
12:07weren't exposed to SSRIs, they find clear differences in the structure of the brain afterwards.
12:13This has been confirmed in over 12 MRI studies.
12:16They then follow these human kids up to adolescence.
12:21And they find that the kids who were, you know, the kids who were exposed
12:25in utero, and this is not even like, you know, they stopped medication during childhood.
12:30They have enduring changes in areas of the brain like the amygdala, which are involved
12:35in emotional processing. And so that, to me, signals that there are impacts of exposing
12:43the brain to drugs that alter your neurochemistry during this critical period of neurological development.
12:51And, you know, we've also seen this with monkeys.
12:54We've had two huge monkey studies.
12:56Well, a huge monkey study is like 30 monkeys.
12:59We had a monkey study from the NIMH and also at UC Davis that put
13:03juvenile monkeys, you know, young monkeys on these antidepressants.
13:07And they found that it disrupted their sleep.
13:10It led to more complacent behavior.
13:12You know, they found clear structural changes in the brains afterwards.
13:16And there were attentional problems and concentration issues.
13:19And so these, you know, it is not a benign thing to put some, to
13:24put a developing brain on a chemical for several years.
13:28And to just take a step back from that, and I can just speak clinically
13:31because I take a lot of people off these medications.
13:34You know, I have women in their 40s who have been on since they, you
13:38know, they were teenagers. And when they come off, they get hit with all of
13:42their emotions. And they say that it's like learning to manage emotions for the first
13:50time in their life. So they feel emotionally stunted in a way because they've been
13:54blunted for such a large period of their life.
13:56And then they're figuring it all out when they come off.
13:59So on multiple levels, it is something that is very concerning.
14:04You know, you had said something about a year mark earlier in our discussion.
14:07And was it that they've not been studied beyond a year or they're not supposed
14:12to be used beyond the year?
14:13That there's never been a randomized placebo -controlled trial that has gone longer than a
14:20year. So, you know, most people, when they get put on an antidepressant, the doctor
14:24says they're safe and effective.
14:26And I guess if you're, you know, a layperson, you might just say, yeah, well,
14:31I bet you there was some study where they put people on these meds for
14:34maybe five years or maybe even two years.
14:36Because that's how, you know, when we look at the duration of antidepressant use, among
14:40users, 70 % of them have been on them for two years or more.
14:44So I think most people would say, I bet you we have good evidence that
14:48these drugs are still working, you know, after a couple of years.
14:51You know, especially since they cause tolerance and they wear off over time and all
14:55of that. But the majority of the studies of these medications, they only last eight
15:00to 12 weeks. Those are the short -term studies.
15:03And the, you know, the longer studies, which the FDA uses to say that they're
15:09safe for longer -term use, they last about 15 months.
15:14And I think for many people, their jaws drop when they hear this because, you
15:19know, they wish they were told, hey, these are safe and effective for, hey, the
15:2215 months they were studied for.
15:24Outside of that, we have no idea what they're doing.
15:28So what does long -term on these drugs do to the brain?
15:33I mean, does it permanently, like, you know, people come off them?
15:36Does it permanently change sort of the, you know, balance in your brain?
15:41Or I guess are there long -term impacts even if you come off them?
15:46This is an uncomfortable area.
15:47And so the truth is I don't have any statistical data or no one has
15:51any statistical data because it hasn't been done in a study where there's, you know,
15:56a thousand people and there's a clear, like, denominator.
16:00But if we just look at things high level, like if you look at the
16:03population level data, as antidepressants have gone up, the rate of suicide has gone up.
16:10So what that tells me is these drugs aren't preventing suicide.
16:13They might actually be making some people worse over the long run.
16:16When we look at naturalistic studies, so these aren't experiments.
16:20mental like these are where doctors will just follow a group of people over time
16:25recently a few years ago there was a study of 600 swiss youth and they
16:31followed them for 30 years with depression questionnaires and they found that the kids who
16:36were on the antidepressants compared to the kids who didn't take antidepressants even after controlling
16:42for you know education level which is frequently a metric for your you know how
16:48your your economic status and how much money you make and they control for the
16:53severity of the depression and family history even after looking at all of that they
16:57find that the people who take these medications long term actually end up worse and
17:04then if we couple that with the monkey studies i told you just a moment
17:07ago um there there there are clear changes uh you know when when you look
17:15at what happens to you know to either the monkeys or the humans who who
17:20are exposed to these medications long term so yes they they they do appear to
17:25be making uh people worse in the long run and this has been you know
17:29this isn't just you know you know me you know one person who used to
17:32work at the fda talking about this this is discussed by you know giovanni fava
17:37you know um and other psychiatric professors out there who who have proposed reasons why
17:45this is happening and this also isn't just a unique thing to antidepressants i mean
17:50when you look at antipsychotics long term um they cause uh brain impairment it's called
17:55tardive dyskinesia and there's permanent movement disorders when you look at benzodiazepines they worsen these
18:02are drugs like xanax and clonopin it's accepted that they worsen anxiety frequently in people
18:07over time um if you look at some medications for parkinson's that affect the dopamine
18:14circuits they can worsen symptoms of parkinson's long term and even when you look at
18:18things like alcohol and methamphetamine and and to me when i when i take all
18:22of this together all i can say is it makes sense because i don't i
18:26do not think the human brain really has you know is evolved to handle years
18:32or decades in a drugged state without something breaking eventually but yet they've been turned
18:39into a lifestyle accessory or you know viral content and you've contributed to major reporting
18:46including a wall street journal piece about how gen z women on tiktok are sort
18:51of glamorizing antidepressants and how it's become sort of this cool cultural thing and this
18:57normalization of it but that doesn't that that sort of dilutes the seriousness of it
19:06so i guess you know why have the into sort of a lifestyle accessory and
19:11and why as a society are we uh you know not telling the truth that
19:16there's dangers to it as well lisa it's such a good question and you know
19:23if i put on my hat as a social commentator somehow like having a mental
19:29illness got like swept up into the whole like oppression thing i mean we've just
19:33come through a 10 -year period where you know if you're a sexual minority or
19:37if you're a certain race or if you're you know you know a gender you
19:42got social you had you got a social currency you got um you know it
19:46was you were seen to be you know oppressed in a way and um you
19:51know and and it mattered and and people treated you well for it and so
19:57the whole mental health thing got swept up into that and they started saying oh
20:01you know these people with mental illness they're so stigmatized um and you know they
20:07really need to be supported we had big campaigns go on like the post your
20:12pill campaign a few years ago where everyone was just like hey you know i
20:15take prozac or i take this anti -psychotic and they went completely viral and um
20:21and so you know i think people do that because it's incentivized i think you
20:28see it on tv you see it on media you see celebrities talk about their
20:33medications i think the general sense is that you know if you have a mental
20:37illness and you're taking a medication or several medications you have some kind of you
20:41know you're a complex person you're a sensitive person you have more depth to you
20:46um and and so it it has become something that we've incentivized people to identify
20:52with and yes it is dangerous because you know at a very simple sense people
20:58think it's cool and they think there's some kind of advantage to having uh to
21:02taking a medication which you know can annihilate your sex drive and cause a whole
21:07bunch of problems long term so is your stance that people should never be on
21:11them or that we should just treat them with the seriousness that you know they
21:17deserve yeah so i i don't think we should throw the baby out with the
21:22bath water so to speak i mean i think we just have to have a
21:24very sober view of these medications they're not fixing any chemical imbalance there's no serotonin
21:29deficits in depression or dopamine deficits in schizophrenia essentially what doctors have is an armamentarium
21:37of drugs which reliably induce uh you know a drug state which can be therapeutic
21:43so especially in the short term so that's really where they have their strongest use
21:47you So, you know, if you put someone on a medication like an antidepressant, predictably
21:53it induces a numb to state.
21:55Now, if you have someone who's paralyzed by anxiety, they will experience that as therapeutic.
22:00If that anxiety is so severe it's leading to someone being suicidal, they will experience
22:05that as being life -saving.
22:07And so it is a tool.
22:08But we also need to understand that when you use drugs to essentially mask symptoms,
22:14a whole bunch of issues arise.
22:18So firstly, the tolerance problems, they wear off over time.
22:22And also, there's an opportunity cost if you get bad medical care.
22:27So what's bad medical care?
22:29Bad medical care is you come in, you have these symptoms, you just get put
22:32on a drug. A lot of the time, these symptoms, especially with like anxiety and
22:36depression, they're due to very normal things going on in people's lives.
22:41You know, they're due to, you know, very poor diets.
22:44You know, they're due to a lack of exercise.
22:46They're due to social isolation.
22:48Sometimes they're due to economic issues and stresses, you know, burnout, you know, difficulty looking
22:54after kids. These are all completely real problems that can be really serious of people.
22:59And if you just put someone on a drug and you don't help them in
23:04their lives, you're essentially just going to make them worse over the long run because
23:08I don't think these drugs actually help people long term.
23:11And so the way I like to think about it is do everything you possibly
23:14can without medication. So use all the non -drug approaches.
23:19If you need to use them in the short term, that's fine.
23:21But long term use should be avoided at all costs and only considered when all
23:27of the non -drug approaches have already been tried and failed.
23:30What role has big pharma played in sort of normalizing and mainstreaming these drugs?
23:39Yeah, great question, Lisa. So I always think there's two major forces that have led
23:44to the overprescription epidemic. The first one I touched on before, which was the how
23:49we've, you know, the economics, you know, the health insurance issue, driving doctors to want
23:55to deliver care in these short visits.
23:57But the other big elephant in the room is the drug companies.
24:01Now, you know, we spend I mean, we spend an insane amount of money on
24:07on mental health each year.
24:09Each year, I think it's like a three hundred billion dollar industry, you know, if
24:14you compare that to, you know, the defense budget, I think it's like 90 billion.
24:20And so it just eclipses it.
24:22I mean, it's just it's so huge.
24:24It's insane. And in that group, the pharmaceutical industry are like the biggest actors.
24:29And so these guys have billions of dollars at their disposal to shape the narrative
24:35around medications. And the way this happens is, you know, one, they can buy influence
24:41with doctors. Many academics at big institutions discover early on that if they work with
24:49the drug companies and their drug and they're friendly with them and they run their
24:52clinical trials and they don't criticize the medications, there's actually a lot of career advantages.
24:58And so you get and because and so because of that, a lot of the
25:02people who are in charge of the academic institutions at Ivy League universities, people that
25:07the public look up to as for advice, they're actually very pro drug because their
25:13careers have been built on developing the medications.
25:15That's because of big pharma, oftentimes you also don't get any coverage of negative stories
25:22about medications in the media because the pharmaceutical industry spends a lot of money buying
25:29ads and it's just awkward and broadcasters will avoid this kind of issue.
25:36These drug companies, they also pay PR firms as well, so they have a whole
25:41series of journalists who are there ready to run cover.
25:44So if there is a negative story that comes out about a drug, they will
25:48have a whole bunch of whether it's medical articles or just lay articles in New
25:53York Times, places like that, that will say, you know, I can't believe this professor
25:56said this drug was so bad.
25:58They're actually wrong, they're dangerous, you know, they're scaring people away from medications, they're stigmatizing
26:04people, it's like, you know, is that what you would imagine if you're a billion
26:09dollar industry, and you know, your cash cow psychiatric medications, you are going to control
26:14that narrative and defend it at all costs.
26:16And that's why there's just, I mean, these medications are looked at as like darlings
26:22right now, you cannot criticize them, you look like you're a cruel person or someone
26:28that's against like a modern, safe and life changing intervention, and they aren't these things.
26:33But that's what that sort of money and influence has been able to do in
26:38just the cultural narrative. Yeah, I feel like we went through a lot of this
26:41with COVID as well, where, you know, if you had questions about lockdowns or questions
26:48about the vaccines, you know, you were sort of shut down and, you know, you're
26:52labeled anti -science or you don't care about people, you know, it's like, I think
26:57we kind of all learned how big of a role big pharma has on our
27:02country and sort of the power of that or even, you know, the power of
27:05people like Dr. Fauci, previously at the NIH and shutting down.
27:09Research that he doesn't like or, or the fear of scientists and studying things who
27:15want. grants and fearful that that's going to be cut off if they, you know,
27:19run afoul of some of these alphabet agencies.
27:25You know, so what do people do, right?
27:26Because there's people who are on some of these drugs and, you know, they listen
27:30to their doctors or maybe they need it in the short term that you laid
27:33out previously. You know, how do they get off them?
27:37What does that process look like?
27:39I know that's part of your expertise in tapering people off these.
27:43So, you know, what are your recommendations there?
27:46Yeah. So, so what I would recommend is, you know, don't jump off these medications
27:50without talking to a doctor or a professional that you trust first.
27:54Ideally, you want to prepare yourself to come off by identifying the areas in the
27:58life that led to your depression.
27:59Sometimes they're super concrete and it's, you know, your, you know, bad relationship or a
28:04job that you don't like.
28:05Other times it can seem like the symptoms come out of nowhere.
28:08Um, in which case things like diet, exercise, mindfulness are really, really good.
28:14So you want to identify the reason why you're depressed in the first place and
28:19try and address, start addressing that with non -drug causes.
28:23Now, afterwards, when you come off these medications, especially if you've been on them for
28:28several years, the worst thing that you can do is come off in like two
28:32months or something like that.
28:34Your brain has taken years to adapt to the presence of this medication.
28:38And if you come off quickly like that, many people will, um, go into withdrawal.
28:44And typically what happens is the doctor will say, well, you know, we tried to
28:48bring you off and now you're having all of these symptoms.
28:50This is proof that your underlying depression is coming back.
28:53You know, you're chronically mentally ill and you just need to be on these medications
28:57for life. For so many people, that is not the case.
29:00They're simply in drug withdrawal.
29:02Um, and it could be avoided if they go slower.
29:06And so two things that I would recommend you do first is that you start
29:11with a five or a 10 % reduction.
29:13Um, and so this can be, you can do this in two ways.
29:17If you have a tablet, you can, uh, get a small jeweler scale and you
29:21can shave off small increments of the tablet with, uh, like a, um, with a
29:26razor. And then you can slowly lower it down in five to 10 increments.
29:30And you just want to listen to your body.
29:32Um, if you, so you do a reduction, you wait two weeks, if your symptoms,
29:38um, are manageable, then you do another reduction and so on and so forth.
29:41And, and in this way, you can slowly bring yourself down.
29:44If you start to have a lot of withdrawal symptoms, go up to the last
29:48dose that you tolerated, wait a couple of weeks and do a smaller reduction.
29:52And when you do it in that way, you're going to make sure that you're
29:56moving at a pace that your body can handle.
29:58The final thing that I want to mention is that the most challenging part of
30:03coming off psychiatric medication is just at the very end.
30:06When you get to the lowest dose, typically it's the dose that you started on.
30:10That's when most of the drug will start to disconnect from the receptor because there's
30:15no longer all this, you know, residual drug floating around your brain from the higher
30:18doses. You know, when you're at that lowest dose, every time you remove a little
30:22bit, um, you're disengaging a lot of receptors.
30:25And so do not be discouraged if it becomes harder at the end.
30:29Sometimes that last bit can take just as long as the top, you know, 75
30:34% of the taper. And so that last bit just move extra slow.
30:38And if for whatever reason, I mean, if you want to find out, you know,
30:42more than this, like a two minute bit that I'm sharing now is you can
30:46come over to my YouTube channel.
30:48It's Dr. Yosef, J -O -S -E -F.
30:50And we have just full playlists that can completely go through all of these, um,
30:55tapering tips on how to come off the medication safely.
30:58Got to take a quick commercial break more with Dr.
31:00Witt During on the other side.
31:04You know, and before we go, um, we've seen sort of the make America healthy
31:08again, movement and, um, RFK Jr.
31:12as, uh, health and human services secretary sort of address and touch these previously untouchables,
31:18um, you know, like over, uh, you know, over dependence on some of these drugs
31:25or concerns with vaccines or, or, you know, things that potentially could lead to autism.
31:30Um, I know you discussed the dangers of taking these while pregnant.
31:35Um, but what do you kind of hope that we get from RFK Jr.
31:40And from the Trump administration's desire to sort of look under the hood and dig
31:45a little deeper on all of these things?
31:48You know, the first thing is just that we're having these conversations now.
31:52Um, I think a lot of this problem can be solved with just informed consent,
31:59you know, just, just with parents knowing, oh, wow.
32:02You know, we actually don't know what these drugs do after about 18 months.
32:06Um, if I'm going to put my child who's has a developing brain, you know,
32:12on this drug, I want to have crystal clear knowledge that this is going to
32:17work and we don't have that.
32:18I think just people knowing that, um, it's going to make a big difference.
32:23Also, you know, adults knowing that I also think, um, that the, the federal agencies
32:32have been so captured by the drug company.
32:35I mean, drug companies, I mean, as someone who used to work at the FDA,
32:40most of the people who work at the FDA, uh, like with other citizens.
32:42You know, when my wife Leo and her mother also stayed in, uh, to move
32:43chief medical professionals and, uh, to go to the choir family.
32:43We love boat professionals who choose their local health care through the process, you know?
32:43former academics who have gone through, you know, they've been groomed essentially by the pharmaceutical
32:49industry to look at things in a certain way.
32:51They exist in this community.
32:53And what I see Bobby doing is he's putting very ethical people in charge of
32:59these organizations and allowing them to build the team.
33:01And so I think if you can get someone really good at the National Institute
33:05of Mental Health, we can start to get some really great research.
33:10I mean, we may get a long term study on antidepressants.
33:13We may get one that compares it to things like exercise, meditation, dietary change.
33:18I mean, these are all the things that doctors really want to know so they
33:21can help their patients. And so I think informed consent and also just improving the
33:26leadership within the federal agencies.
33:29And I think he's going to do that.
33:30I think he's really doing a great job so far.
33:33Dr. Witt -During, thank you so much for your time, sir.
33:35We really appreciate it. Very interesting stuff.
33:37Thanks, Lisa. Thanks for having me.
33:39Have a good one. That was Dr.
33:40Joseph Witt -During. Appreciate him for making the time to come on the show.
33:44Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday, but you can listen
33:47throughout the week. I also want to thank my producer, Jon Castro, for putting the
33:50show together. Until next time.