CCHR Warns Psychiatry May Undermine HHS Antidepressant Deprescribing Plan

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is warning that organized psychiatry's history of minimizing antidepressant risks and opposing full disclosure to patients could undermine the Department of Health and Human Services' May 2026 plan to address overprescribing and support safe deprescribing and tapering of antidepressants. CCHR urges federal officials to strengthen 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 concerns about antidepressants and instead cite workforce shortages and limited beds. CCHR sees this as a request for more funding, despite mental health spending skyrocketing 241% from $40.9 billion in 2000 to $139.6 billion in 2021 while outcomes 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 and recently conducted a survey at a major psychiatric annual meeting. Of 229 psychiatrists who responded, 94% disagreed that the reforms would help their field. CCHR sees this as an exercise to manufacture opposition to deprescribing. In 2002, a leader of that committee was president and CEO of a Maryland psychiatric hospital where clinical drug trials were conducted for multiple pharmaceutical companies, including for "treatment-resistant depression." A high-profile mass shooter once treated at this hospital 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, issuing a joint statement with the president of a U.S. psychiatric association expressing concern that a black-box warning might have a chilling effect on prescribing. This came when at least 100 families had loved ones who committed suicide while taking antidepressants.

In 1991, CCHR's actions prompted an FDA public hearing into antidepressants linked to suicide and violence, where testimony was ignored by a panel of psychiatrists. In 2004, CCHR assisted families testifying before another FDA hearing on antidepressants inducing suicide, which contributed to the Black Box suicide warning issued that October. The chief communications officer of the main psychiatric body acknowledged CCHR as an opponent due to its well-publicized campaign, noting the body coordinated with pharmaceutical-funded patient advocacy groups to promote antidepressants.

Such warnings threatened a booming industry. Between 1998 and 2002, two million commercially insured pediatric beneficiaries were taking antidepressants, with the fastest-growing segment being preschoolers aged 0-5 years. Today, global antidepressant sales 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." In 2001, patient materials from a psychiatric body stated 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 such advertisements were not supported by science.

On June 27, 2005, a 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, but weeks later 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 differences in brain chemicals may contribute to depression. A major 2022 University College London umbrella review in Molecular Psychiatry delivered irrefutable evidence disproving the serotonin theory of depression.

Withdrawal risks were similarly minimized. The term "antidepressant discontinuation syndrome" emerged from a 1996 pharmaceutical industry-funded meeting to deflect attention from dependency. In 2026, Psychiatric Times admitted these risks had been routinely denied. Withdrawal effects include brain zaps, cognitive impairment, akathisia, anxiety, and emotional blunting. Eastgate warns that given this pattern, claims that organized psychiatry will support deprescribing lack credibility. CCHR urges full implementation of the HHS plan with strong safeguards.