RFK Jr.

During his confirmation audience of the Senate to serve as a secretary for health and social services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Kennedy’s comment at Wednesday’s hearing was one of the many controversial claims he made on drugs and dependence.

Kennedy, 71, was a heroine user for more than a decade in his youth, of which he frequently speaks. He has been in recovery for 42 years, he said at his second confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Although there is a lack of medical training, it was a criticism of antidepressant drugs – a class of drugs called selective inhibitors of the reustront of serotonin, or SSRS.

“I know people, including family members, who spent a lot of time leaving the SSRIs than leaving the heroine,” Kennedy said at the hearing.

Decades of research have shown that SSRIs were safe and effective, while heroin is very addictive in almost all users.

“Antidepressants and heroin are in different universes in terms of dependence,” said Keith Humphreys, who studies dependence at Stanford University. “During my 35 years in the field of drug addiction, I only met two or three people who thought they were addicted to antidepressants against thousands of people who were dependent on heroin and other opioids . “

A study published in the medical journal Lancet Significant withdrawal symptoms only affected about 1 in 35 people who use antidepressants. It is important to be in the custody of a doctor when you get out of the SSRIs and to gradually weaken.

Kennedy did previous statements Regarding his approach to the recovery of dependence, the promotion of the concept of “healing farms”, where people who are taking dependence would live and work. Many of those who study the consumption disorders have expressed a doubt about this approach, because it focuses on the moral dimensions of recovery – rather than exploiting the best medical practices.

In his testimony, Kennedy said that the treatment of drug addiction incorporating outdoor work should be available for people with drug addiction, but no one should be forced to go “kicks and cries ».