Mental Health Watchdog Releases White Paper Questioning Antidepressant Prescribing Practices

A mental health watchdog organization released a sweeping critique this week of how antidepressants are prescribed in America, arguing that doctors too often hand out psychiatric medications without first ruling out treatable physical diseases that can masquerade as mental illness. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, based in Los Angeles, published a white paper titled "Antidepressants: A Public Health Catastrophe – Evidence of Harm, Decades of Cover-Up, and the Urgent Need for Reform," making the case that mandatory medical testing should become standard practice before any psychiatric diagnosis or drug treatment is pursued.

The numbers are substantial. Over 76 million Americans currently take psychiatric drugs, including roughly 45 million on antidepressants. Among those are 6.1 million children and teenagers, with 2.1 million prescribed antidepressants despite evidence linking these drugs to increased suicide risk in young people. The organization's argument gains some institutional weight from recent federal action: in May, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommended a nationwide deprescribing plan focused on reducing psychiatric drug use, particularly in children, with emphasis on informed consent, prevention, and safe withdrawal. In July, Florida's state health office issued guidance recommending against psychotropic drugs for children ages five through seventeen, emphasizing that any discontinuation must be gradual.

The core concern centers on diagnostic precision. Psychiatric diagnoses, unlike most medical conditions, rely on subjective observation of behavior and mood rather than blood tests or biological markers. The organization points out that the symptoms of major depressive disorder—weight loss, fatigue, sleep disturbance—are identical to symptoms of diabetes, cancer, and other treatable diseases. When a doctor sees these signs, the question of whether to prescribe psychiatric medication or order a CT scan becomes crucial. The watchdog cites a 1989 California pilot study, which it helped establish in 1982, showing that 80 percent of psychiatric patients screened had undiagnosed physical diseases, many of which were causing their psychiatric symptoms. Some of those abnormalities were actually induced by the psychiatric drugs themselves.

Two cases illustrate the human stakes. One patient spent five years in psychiatric treatment for headaches, dizziness, and an unsteady gait before a medical examination revealed a brain tumor. More recently, Sarah-Jane Doherty, a 24-year-old from Yorkshire in England, experienced exhaustion, depression, psychosis, hallucinations, mood swings, vision problems, and electric-shock sensations in her arm. She was diagnosed as bipolar and prescribed an antipsychotic that made her worse. In June 2026, emergency care doctors ordered imaging scans that revealed a brain tumor requiring surgery. Had thorough medical evaluation happened first, the misdiagnosis and inappropriate medication might have been avoided.

The organization's argument draws on decades of observation. Founded in 1969, it has worked on mental health policy issues for 57 years and helped pass more than 190 reforms worldwide. It notes that the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual has progressively broadened the boundaries of psychiatric categories with each revision, raising questions about whether diagnoses have become less precise rather than more so. The Cato Institute has observed that when diagnosis is subjective and payment depends on diagnosis, the system creates incentives to expand the definition of illness. Jan Eastgate, president of the watchdog group, stated that workable alternatives to psychiatric drugs exist and must be prioritized, and that the federal deprescribing initiative offers a chance to make mandatory medical testing standard practice nationwide.

The argument is not that antidepressants have no role, but that the current system often skips the foundational step of ruling out physical disease. A physician quoted in the white paper put it plainly: no one should accept a doctor who listens to a complaint and hands over a prescription without a thorough history, complete physical exam, and investigation of underlying medical causes. The organization concludes that protecting patients from unnecessary drug exposure begins with the discipline of proper diagnosis.