Early this week, CNN reported, “RFK Jr. launches plan to curb ‘overprescribing’ of psychiatric drugs.” Finally, some hope for Democrats! Secretary Kennedy correctly called it a “groundbreaking, historic win for American health.”

Over the last twenty years, novel medicines treating mental disorders have been a rare area of nearly miraculous progress. Previously untreatable schizophrenia and other profound mental illnesses have become manageable, providing a lifeline to desperate families tortured by one of the most tragic and difficult situations imaginable. Patients who would have required restraint became students, employees, and productive citizens able to live independently for the first time.

But ironically, because of the drugs’ success, they came with a darker side. It was a lucrative temptation, a fetid corruption that spoiled all the success, inflicted on trusting Americans by the same types of doctors who pushed covid vaccines without informed consent, without a moment’s critical thought, and without even buying us dinner before they slipped us the jab.

The old saw goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.These days, if all you have is an SSRI, everyone looks like an SSRI-shaped nail. Worse, these drugs are chronic, daily medications, a one-way street that not only come with serious side effects, but have such serious withdrawal symptoms that cessation often requires medical supervision and sometimes even inpatient care.

Withdrawal from SSRIs is often described as being worse than trying to quit heroin. (Without any of the upside.) The drugs turn doctors into dealers, and patients into desperate, depressed junkies who are high-functioning but definitely aren’t having much fun.

A couple of decades ago, about six months after being involved in two consecutive car accidents with two careless drivers, my doctor —who was not a psychiatrist— diagnosed me as “depressed” and prescribed an antidepressant. He never even asked about the auto accidents during the four-minute consultation over my sleep problems.

I tried the pills. But didn’t like how they made me feel, and I quit. Ironically, while searching for alternative treatments, a ‘holistic’ doctor spent an hour taking my history and sent me for an MRI. Only after getting those films —a year later— did I finally connect my symptoms to a neck injury.

Yesterday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a major new plan to reduce over prescriptions of psychiatric medications, support alternative treatment options, and discontinue medications when no longer effective. This was a bold plan. As CNN’s quoted medical experts made clear, the psychiatric industry categorically rejected claims that antidepressants and anti-anxiety medicines are over prescribed —if anything, they claim under prescription— and who believe Secretary Kennedy is generally a nincompoop.

The guild always defends the guild. So far as I can tell, the proposals were intensely popular with patients and heterodox providers, and terrifying to pharma and the medical-industrial complex.

CNN reported Kennedy’s plan but completely failed to describe it. It just leaped straight from the announcement to quoting ‘experts’ who disagreed with Kennedy. Fortunately, the “MAHA Action Plan” is published right on the HHS website. Ironically, comparing CNN experts’ criticisms to the Action Plan, it addresses nearly every one of their complaints, and pretty much sounds identical to what the experts claimed was actually needed.

One suspects the experts never read the Action Plan before offering their critiques. (Reading action plans is depressing.)

In a widely shared clip of Kennedy’s comments, he mentioned a new billing code that will allow doctors to be reimbursed for de-prescribing antidepressants and helping wean patients off them when they aren’t producing a “clinical benefit.” Take two of these LESS and call me in the morning.

In other words, finally, doctors will have an economic incentive to not prescribe mind-altering drugs and to stop antidepressants when they don’t work— even when stopping isn’t easy. A billing code that pays doctors to un-prescribe is the most subversive line item ever to appear in the Federal Register. Pharma built the SSRI economy on a billing code that rewarded prescribing. Kennedy is reversing the racket using its own machinery. Brilliant.

For any other Administration, in any other news cycle, this would be covered as a major initiative. Tens of millions of Americans are potentially affected by the new MAHA Action Plan. In 2023, roughly 1 in 9 American adults took an antidepressant, with higher rates among women (1 in 6), and in shocking numbers of children as young as three years old. (It even affects Democrats most, since there is at least a 20-point gap in mental health diagnoses between the parties.)

“We will support patient autonomy, require informed consent and shared decision-making,” Kennedy said, “and shift the standard of care toward prevention, transparency, and a more holistic approach to mental health.” In other words, they’re going to make doctors tell patients what they’re getting into, such as not being able to quit taking the pills without first spending a month in rehab.

It’s worth noting how this massive initiative was announced during the sweet spot of the midterm elections. I’m betting a lot more of this is coming.