“We are alarmed”: American psychiatrists demand the removal of the Secretary for Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Psychiatrists in the United States have joined other public health groups demanding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the position of health secretary, reports NPR.
Two organizations in the field of psychiatry – Southern California Psychiatry Society (“The Southern California Psychiatry Association”) and recently the established initiative group Committee to Protect Public Mental Health (“The Committee for Protecting Public Mental Health”) – have published statements stating that the actions of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have increased stigmatization, spread fear and affected access to mental health and addiction treatments.
“As doctors dedicated to evidence-based care, we are alarmed by the direction in which HHS is heading under the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”, is shown in a statement issued by Committee to Protect Public Mental Health.
This organization has just over 50 members, while Southern California Psychiatry Society represents over a thousand clinicians.
US Health Department's reaction
“Secretary Kennedy remains firmly employed to fulfill the promise of President Trump to make America again healthy, by dismantling a failed quo statue, restoring public confidence in health institutions and ensuring transparency, responsibility and decision-making power that the American people have asked by vote,” he wrote in the HHLiard.
Dr. Steven Sharfstein, former president of the American Psychiatry Association and Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, explained instead that in recent years the federal government has played an important role in financing the efforts to combat serious mental illnesses and addictions through Samhsa, an agency dedicated to the prevention and the disorder. mental health.
These efforts were beginning to bear fruit, he adds. “Significant progress has been made in reducing the number of deaths through overdose in the US, as a result of these initiatives,” says Sharfstein.
But the dismissal of Samhsa staff earlier this year, and the efforts of the secretary of health to abolish the agency seriously affected these progress, says Sharfstein, who is also a founding member of Committee to Protect Public Mental Health.
“RFK Jr. tries to eliminate the federal agency responsible for supporting local states and communities in preventing overdoses,” says Dr. Eric Rapha-Yuan, psychiatrist in San Diego and a member of the same committee. “This is exactly the direction opposed to the one we should go,” he mourns.
Critics to comments made by Kennedy Jr. about psychiatric drugs
Both organizations have also expressed concern about Secretary Health attacks on psychiatric drugs including strategy Make Our Children Healthy Again (“Let's make our healthy children again”), also known as the “Maha report”.
The Maha report “clearly distorts data on psychotropic drugs, practically ignoring the whole corpus of scientific literature,” says Dr. Emily Wood, a co -president of Southern California Psychiatric Association. “In addition, he proposes different ways to limit access to psychiatric drugs – which is extremely worrying, given that these drugs are essential for many people suffering from depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, ADHD and other disorders.”
“This distortion increases stigmatization, spreads fear and can prevent people from asking for help exactly when they need it,” says Southe statementrn California Psychiatric Association. “The report uses these false statements as a pretext to impose restrictions on access to vital services that mitigate suffering, restore normal operation and prevent suicide.”
Dr. Sharfstein also expresses his concern for the impact of budgetary discounts applied to the Medicaid program on people with serious mental diseases, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. right National Institute of Mental Healthalmost 6% of American adults live with a serious mental illness. Due to the debilitating nature of these conditions, patients tend to be poor, explains Sharfstein.
“They cannot afford their medicines,” he says. “And Medicaid is their only support. But it is not just drugs – it is also out of ambulatory treatments, access to emergency hospital care,” explains the doctor.
American doctors ask the replacement of Kennedy Jr. with a professional in the medical field
His group asks the legisers to replace Kennedy with a person formed in the field of public health and evidence-based care. “In order to protect patients, to defend the scientific integrity and to restore the public confidence, we join our colleagues in the appeal to the president to dismiss Secretary Kennedy and to appoint, without delay, a qualified leader, led by evidence,” the statement urges.
Trump chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, for the position of health secretary after he withdrew to the US Presidency during last year's campaign and expressed his support for the Republican leader.
Its nomination, a known antivaccinist for a wide range of controversial opinions on issues related to public health, has triggered alarm signals in the US medical community since its announcement.
Since taking over the position, he has taken several measures denounced by the medical specialists in the United States. Most recently, President Donald Trump said at his urging that autism is caused by Tylenol, a drug containing paracetamol.
This statement was widely rejected and condemned by the scientific community.
