RFK Jr.’s unsound ideas are a threat to my mental and physical health — and yours, too

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives remarks at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel on Aug. 23, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images.

I am one of the 68 million Americans living with mental illness and one of the over 10 million Americans who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. 

On February 13, President Trump issued an executive order establishing the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, chaired by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Among other initiatives, the commission is charged with assessing “the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.”

Where does this initiative find its genesis, and what would be the consequences if Kennedy’s past and current public statements become reality? 

We are finding out right now.

In July 2024, during a presidential campaign town hall, Kennedy referred to Americans who take psychiatric medications for ADHD, depression and anxiety as “addicts.” He shared his plan to send Americans living with addiction — including presumably people with mental health diagnoses — to “wellness farms” in rural areas. He has described these “farms” as places where people would be cured of disease by eating organic produce and not taking previously prescribed medication.

During his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Kennedy suggested antidepressant medications may be as addictive as heroin — a claim contradicted by research. 

To test his credibility on the psychiatric medicines millions of Americans need, let’s examine his views on more well known medical issues, like vaccines. 

In February, Kennedy said “nothing is going to be off limits” with regard to children’s vaccine schedules, according to a leaked video viewed by The Hill.

Now we have seen the first consequences of Kennedy’s actions. On February 26, the FDA — under Kennedy’s direction—  cancelled a meeting of seasonal flu vaccine experts that had been scheduled to start planning the national response to the next flu season.

On March 10, amidst a deadly measles outbreak in Texas, Kennedy suggested that the measles vaccine had harmed children, among many other false and misleading claims not supported by research. Now we are learning that NIH is planning to terminate or limit grants for studies on why certain communities do not get vaccinated, as happened in the Mennonite community in Texas.

Peter Marks, the top vaccine official at the FDA, was forced to resign, saying that Kennedy was mostly interested in “subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.” 

Either by cruel malice or incompetence, Kennedy is steering the ship of national public health into a Charybdis that could have more devastating consequences than the Trump administration’s response to the 2020 pandemic.

The medications that I am prescribed for bipolar disorder and diabetes have greatly improved my life, and really made my life possible.

I take 120 mg of lurasidone daily, which is an antipsychotic medication that will be targeted by Kennedy’s commission. Clinical psychosis is where excited brain activity causes false thoughts, like delusions about being invisible or able to fly. I had my first episode in 2013 when I was 20 years old, a common age for a first episode. I had my second episode in 2017 after I asked my doctor for permission that I go off of lurasidone to lose weight. That was a mistake in hindsight, and I live with a lot of trauma because I wasn’t on that medication to prevent another episode of psychosis.

I take lithium and lamotrigine, which are mood stabilizers that work in different ways. I take 1,800 mg of lithium carbonate (the mineral) daily and 100 mg of lamotrigine daily. These medications are also targeted by Kennedy’s commission. They help regulate the ups and down of mania and depression that are common for Americans with bipolar disorder who are not on medication.

I also take two diabetes drugs. In May of 2023, my A1C, which is the measurement for diabetes, was in the diabetic range, so I started a GLP-1 medication to help correct that. I am now in the healthy, normal A1C range and take tirzepatide and metformin for diabetes and weight loss. These medications are also being targeted by Kennedy’s commission.

Like any good son of Abraham, I know that we humans are not perfect. Our brains and bodies were not evolved to be always well adjusted; they were evolved to keep us alive in a dangerous world. If you are paranoid about getting eaten alive, maybe there’s a greater chance that you and your family will survive and prosper.

But we live in the year 2025. We don’t have to live with clinical depression, anxiety, PTSD and all the rest. We can take medications backed by decades of clinical research that make huge improvements in our quality of life, every single day. 

Until recently, we also didn’t have to live with polio, measles or other diseases easily prevented with vaccines developed decades ago.

If Kennedy is able to fully complete his vision for American health care, 341 million Americans would be left without the seasonal flu vaccine and possibly other vaccines about which he has raised doubts.

Already, the Trump administration has stopped funding appropriated by Congress for COVID-19 test kits and other public health campaigns, leading to a mass layoff of workers at the Minnesota Department of Health. 

Kennedy and Trump are also cutting funding for basic medical research, slashing the budget of the National Institutes of Health, which is responsible for many of our medical breakthroughs and drug development, including in psychiatry.

The logical conclusion of Kennedy’s past statements and current actions is that he would like to rescind FDA approvals for psychotropic medications like those taken by me and tens of millions of Americans every day.

So what’s the worst that could happen? Consider a common malady like the flu: According to data from Centers for Disease Control, from 1999 through 2015, the highest mortality rates in other countries around the globe from seasonal flu are about four times that of the U.S. 

In the 2024-2025 flu season, the estimated flu deaths in the U.S. with current availability of vaccines and treatments is 21,000 to 100,000 for the season. So there is a real potential for somewhere on the order of 300,000 more deaths per year if Kennedy succeeds in his anti-scientific campaign. And that’s only the seasonal flu.

Americans have already been going to Canada for more affordable prescription drugs for the past several decades, especially before the Affordable Care Act and former President Biden’s move to curb the cost of medication.

If current trends continue, we may well see millions of Americans crossing the border to get their seasonal flu and COVID shots, their antidepressant medication, and other health care needs that were once legal and normal in America. We may see contraband lithium carbonate labeled as candy shipped in from Mexico. We can make a joke about how incredibly stupid it all is, but it’s no joke that Kennedy has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands and upend or ruin millions of lives that have been made well by prescribed medication backed by decades of clinical research.

The threat is real. It’s posted right on the White House website. It’s happening right now with the seasonal flu vaccine, measles and clinical research. 

It’s important to speak up, call out what’s stupid and harmful, share the stories of millions of Americans, and stop Kennedy’s fever dreams from coming to pass.