The mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is sounding the alarm that organized psychiatry's long history of downplaying risks associated with psychiatric drugs could weaken the Department of Health and Human Services' May 2026 plan to address overprescribing and support safe deprescribing of antidepressants. CCHR urges federal officials to implement stronger protections for informed consent and patient safety.
The federal shift toward deprescribing marks a long-overdue health action, aligning with international concerns such as the 2024 UK All-Party Parliamentary Group report, which called for deprescribing antidepressants and creating withdrawal support services. Yet some within U.S. psychiatry, while appearing to welcome efforts to improve treatment quality, minimize legitimate concerns about antidepressants and instead cite workforce shortages and limited beds. CCHR sees this as a thinly veiled request for more funding, despite mental health spending skyrocketing 241% from $40.9 billion in 2000 to $139.6 billion in 2021, while outcomes have worsened, as highlighted in an April 2026 U.S. House Subcommittee roundtable.
Following HHS consumer-protection plans, a psychiatric committee formed in 2025 to counter these initiatives recently conducted a highly selective survey at a major psychiatric annual meeting. Of 229 psychiatrists who responded, 94% disagreed that the HHS reforms would help their field. CCHR sees this as an exercise to manufacture opposition to deprescribing in order to protect antidepressant prescribing.
In 2002, a psychiatric leader who now serves as secretary of that committee was president and CEO of a major psychiatric hospital in Maryland, where clinical drug trials were conducted under contracts from multiple pharmaceutical companies, including for treatment-resistant depression. It was publicly stated that there was tremendous excitement in new psychiatric pharmaceuticals, noting the hospital's large patient volume made it a valuable asset to pharmaceutical clients. A high-profile mass shooter was once treated at this hospital, where he was prescribed antidepressants linked to violent and suicidal behavior.
In 2004, the psychiatrist formally opposed an FDA Black Box warning on SSRI antidepressants and suicide risk in children. Together with the president of a U.S. psychiatric association, he issued a joint statement expressing deep concern that a black-box warning might have a chilling effect on prescribing. This occurred when at least 100 families in the U.S. had loved ones who committed suicide while taking antidepressants.
CCHR's actions had prompted an FDA public hearing into antidepressants linked to suicide and violence in 1991, where testimony from patients and families was ignored by a panel of psychiatrists. In 2004, CCHR again assisted families who testified before another FDA hearing on antidepressants inducing suicide, which contributed to the Black Box suicide warning issued in October that year. The chief communications officer of the main psychiatric body acknowledged CCHR as an opponent due to its well-publicized campaign. He noted: "We understood that we could not just select one person to testify and expect that person to carry the organization's message." The body coordinated with pharmaceutical-funded patient advocacy groups that could be used indirectly to promote antidepressants.
Such warnings potentially threatened a booming industry. Between 1998 and 2002, some two million commercially insured pediatric beneficiaries were taking antidepressants. The fastest-growing segment was preschoolers aged 0-5 years. Today, global sales of antidepressants have reached $15.6 billion.
Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, said, "For years, the mental health field touted the mantra that depression was caused by a chemical imbalance — a claim CCHR refuted since the first SSRI antidepressant came on the market in 1988." Yet, in 2001, patient materials from a psychiatric professional body stated that antidepressants "may be prescribed to correct imbalances in the levels of chemicals in the brain" and are not "habit-forming." In May 2005, CCHR organized a joint letter to the FDA signed by more than 100 doctors, stating that such advertisements were not supported by science and misled patients.
On June 27, 2005, the senior figure representing this new psychiatric committee appeared on NBC's Today Show and called it "total nonsense" to say there was no evidence that drugs correct a chemical imbalance. However, weeks later, he admitted to People magazine that there was no lab test to prove a chemical imbalance causes any mental disorder. In 2021, psychiatric agency materials still suggested that differences in brain chemicals may contribute to depression symptoms. A major 2022 University College London umbrella review in Molecular Psychiatry delivered irrefutable evidence disproving the serotonin theory of depression.
Psychiatric organizations have also consistently downplayed risks, including potential violence, now widely recognized. Withdrawal risks were similarly minimized. Patients experiencing severe symptoms were often misdiagnosed as relapsing, trapping them in long-term use. The term "antidepressant discontinuation syndrome" emerged from a 1996 pharmaceutical industry-funded meeting to deflect attention from antidepressant dependency and withdrawal. In 2026, Psychiatric Times admitted these risks had been routinely denied, minimized, or reframed. Withdrawal effects include brain zaps, cognitive impairment, akathisia, anxiety, irritability, emotional blunting, and impaired concentration.
Eastgate warns: "Given this decades-long pattern of downplaying risks, opposing warnings and maintaining pharmaceutical relationships, claims that organized psychiatry will genuinely support the current Administration's deprescribing efforts lack credibility. Their track record suggests a continued priority on preserving unchecked prescribing patterns over patient safety." CCHR urges federal officials to fully implement the HHS plan with strong safeguards for informed consent and deprescribing support.
