The Truth with Lisa Boothe: Mental Health & Psychiatric Drugs: What the Rob Reiner Tragedy Reveals About Over-Prescription

Summary

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The Truth with Lisa Boothe:

"Mental Health & Psychiatric Drugs: What the Rob Reiner Tragedy Reveals About Over-Prescription"

Date: January 1, 2026
Host: Lisa Boothe
Guest: Dr. Joseph Whit Durning (Board-Certified Psychiatrist, Former FDA Medical Officer)
Podcast: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Lisa Boothe dives into America’s mental health crisis, using the shocking tragedy involving Hollywood legend Rob Reiner and his family as a focal point for discussing the overprescription of psychiatric drugs. Dr. Joseph Whit Durning, an outspoken psychiatrist and former FDA officer, shares his expertise on the risks associated with widespread use and casual prescription of psychiatric medications, especially their long-term effects, influence of Big Pharma, and the cultural normalization of psychiatric drug use.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rob Reiner Tragedy and Its Broader Implications

• Context: Rob Reiner and wife Michelle's deaths, allegedly at the hands of their son Nick, who has schizophrenia and a history of substance abuse and psychiatric drug use ([02:33]).
• Why It Matters: Raises national concern about the dangers of psychiatric medication overuse, particularly their links to violent behavior in rare instances.
• Dr. Durning:

  "...antipsychotics in rare instances can make people homicidal...it is possible that these drugs actually can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. They can be the causal factor for driving violent events like this." (Dr. Whit Durning, [05:55])

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2. The Hidden Dangers of Psychiatric Medication: Over-Prescription, Polypharmacy, and Short-Term Data

• Overuse & Drug Layering: Many patients are on multiple meds (antidepressants, antipsychotics, etc.) without adequate study of their interactions.
• Key Problem: Drugs are typically only studied in isolation and short-term—most trials last 8-12 weeks, with the longest extending to about 15 months ([19:25]).
• Dr. Durning:

  "We don't have any evidence that these medications work any longer than about a year... it's not because the evidence base really supports it or is strong. It's because of an economic convenience." ([07:55])

• Insurance’s Role: Fast-paced care encourages doctors to prescribe medication as the easiest solution in short visits.

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3. Side Effects: Short and Long-Term Risks—Especially for the Young

• Children and Adolescents:
  • Studies show clear brain structure changes in children exposed to SSRIs in utero or during childhood ([16:47]).
  • Increased suicide risk among youth on antidepressants due to black box warning effects.
  • Dr. Durning:

    "That's the average, that is actually the norm for children on these medications, which is why it’s insane...that we have 5% of our kids on them." ([11:35])

• Long-Term Use for All Ages:
  • Higher suicide rates in populations where antidepressant use has risen.
  • Long-term users may experience worse mental health outcomes than non-users.
  • Animal studies (monkeys) confirm risks to brain health and behavior ([20:57]).
  • Dr. Durning:

    "...they do appear to be making people worse in the long run." ([20:57])

  • Emotional blunting and delayed emotional maturation noted in people on SSRIs from adolescence.

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4. Cultural Glamourization and Social Media

• The “Lifestyle Accessory” Problem: SSRIs and other drugs are presented on platforms like TikTok as cool or desirable, particularly among Gen Z women.
• Post Your Pill Campaign: Social media trends encourage casual, even proud, sharing of medication use.
• Dr. Durning:

  "...if you have a mental illness and you’re taking a medication or several medications, you have some kind of... more depth... So it has become something that we've incentivized people to identify with. And yes, it is dangerous..." ([24:32])

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5. Big Pharma and the Mainstreaming of Psychiatric Drugs

• Massive Industry: ~$300 billion mental health/pharma industry incentivizes normalization, shapes the narrative, and suppresses negative stories ([28:42]).
• Influence on Academia and Media: Academic promotions, media silence on negative studies, PR-driven narratives.
• Dr. Durning:

  "...the pharmaceutical industry are like the biggest actors. And so these guys have billions of dollars at their disposal to shape the narrative around medications." ([28:50])

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6. Best Practices and Personal Responsibility

• Not Calling for a Ban: Dr. Durning doesn't advocate for never using meds—but insists they must be a last, not first, resort ([26:29]).
  • Short-Term Use: Drugs may help in acute crisis.
  • Long-Term Harms: Encourages non-drug interventions (diet, exercise, social connection, therapy) as the foundation.
  • Opportunity Cost: Drugs may mask underlying life issues that need to be resolved for true recovery.
  • Dr. Durning:

    "...do everything you possibly can without medication. So use all the non drug approaches. If you need to use them in the short term, that's fine, but long term use should be avoided at all costs..." ([26:29])

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7. Safe Tapering and Withdrawal

• Importance of Slow Withdrawal: Abrupt stopping can trigger neurological injury and severe withdrawal symptoms (protracted withdrawal), even increasing suicide risk ([11:35]).
• Stepwise Reductions:
  • Start with a 5-10% reduction, using a jeweler's scale for tablets, and adjust every 2 weeks.
  • Go slowest at the lowest dose due to the body's sensitivity ([32:57]).
  • Always consult a physician before attempting any changes.
  • Dr. Durning:

    "...the most challenging part of coming off psychiatric medication is just at the very end... that last bit can take just as long as the top 75% of the taper..." ([32:57])

  • Further resources at Dr. Durning's YouTube channel: Dr. Yosef.

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8. Government Policy and Hopes for Change

• New Federal Scrutiny: Guest expresses hope for more transparency under RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary and the Trump administration—especially around untouchable topics like vaccine and drug safety ([38:57]).
• Demand for Informed Consent:

  "I think a lot of this problem can be solved with just informed consent. Just with parents knowing, 'oh, wow, we actually don't know what these drugs do after about 18 months...'" ([39:41])

• Call for Better Research: Advocates for long-term comparative studies on psychiatric drugs and an overhaul of federal agencies' culture ([39:41]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The only reason why we're talking about psychiatric medications is ... antipsychotics, in rare instances, can make people homicidal.”
  — Dr. Joseph Whit Durning ([05:01])

• “...we don't have any evidence that these medications work any longer than about a year...it's really because of commercial factors.”
  — Dr. Durning ([07:55])

• “That's the average, that is actually the norm for children on these medications, which is why it's insane...that we have 5% of our kids on them.”
  — Dr. Durning ([11:35])

• “...as antidepressants have gone up, the rate of suicide has gone up. So what that tells me is these drugs aren't preventing suicide. They might actually be making some people worse...”
  — Dr. Durning ([20:57])

• "I do not think the human brain...is evolved to handle years or decades in a drugged state without something breaking eventually."
  — Dr. Durning ([20:57])

• “I think a lot of this problem can be solved with just informed consent.”
  — Dr. Durning ([39:41])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening main topic & guest intro: [02:33]
• Tragedy & risks of medication overuse: [04:18]–[07:24]
• Insurance & economic incentives for overprescription: [07:55]
• Dangers of combining multiple drugs: [07:55]
• Child & adolescent risks, brain changes: [16:47]
• Short-term vs. long-term evidence for meds: [19:15]
• Withdrawal dangers: [11:35], [32:57]
• Glamorization in media/social media: [23:48]
• Big Pharma shaping narrative: [28:42]
• Tapering guidance: [32:57]
• Policy hopes with RFK Jr. & informed consent: [38:57], [39:41]

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Tone & Delivery

The conversation is serious, fact-driven, and occasionally urgent, especially when discussing the risks to children and the culture that minimizes or glamorizes medication use. Dr. Durning provides direct guidance while expressing frustration at the status quo, always balancing caution with practical advice.

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Summary Takeaways

• Caution with psychiatric drugs, especially for youth, is essential due to poorly understood long-term risks.
• Overprescription is largely driven by health system economics and pharmaceutical industry influence.
• The culture of casually sharing and encouraging medication use is dangerous, particularly on social media.
• People considering quitting psychiatric meds should do so slowly, under doctor guidance, and seek alternatives first.
• Regulatory and research overhaul is needed, focusing on informed consent and true long-term studies.

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Transcript

[Lisa Booth]

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[Lisa Booth]

Welcome to the Truth with Lisa Booth, where we get to the heart of the issues that matter to you. Today, we're talking about mental health. The nation has been grappling with the heartbreaking tragedy surrounding the deaths of Hollywood icon Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle, allegedly at the hands of their son Nick, who has struggled with schizophrenia, substance abuse and psychiatric medication adjustments. But this story has really once again thrust America's mental health crisis into the spotlight. Today we're joined by board certified psychiatrist and former FDA medical officer Dr. Joseph Whit Ding. Dr. Joseph is a leading voice challenging the overprescription of psychiatric drugs. From the glamorization of SSRI on Tik Tok among young women to sort of the hidden risks of long lasting use of some of these drugs, the potential push to homicidal tendencies as well, the things that we don't really talk about as a society. Now that a lot of these drugs have been mainstreamed, they're discussed very casually in a cavalier way. So we're going to talk about this surge in use, what it means for you, what it means for the country, and also how big pharma has fueled a lot of it. So stay tuned for Dr. Joseph Witt during. Well, Dr. Joseph Witt, during. It's great to have you on the show, sir. You've been talking about a lot of important things in the country just over dependency on drugs, particularly mental health drugs. So really looking forward to getting your insight into all of this.

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

Thanks for having me. Lisa.

[Lisa Booth]

The concepts of mental health as well as some of these psychiatric drugs, it's really on everyone's radar. After the tragic deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle, allegedly at the hands of his son Nick, who has a long history of substance abuse, mental health struggles, also reported schizophrenia diagnosis, past use of a lot of different drugs for those things, antidepressant psychiatric drugs. From your work as a former FDA officer and a psychiatrist who has been sounding the alarm on all this stuff, what does this tragedy reveal about the risks of sort of over reliance on medications for some of these complex health issues?

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

Yeah, Lisa. So, you know, we often typically in a case like this, we wouldn't even be talking about psychiatric medications. You know, in a man who, you know, troubled man with a history of drug abuse, I think most people would say, well, you know, maybe it was some illegal drugs he may have been using or maybe there was some animosity between the parents. I mean, these, these things happen. Unfortunately, murder happens within families. The only reason why we're talking about psychiatric medications is I think TMZ got the scoop on this, and they found out from a source that he had just been in a very elite psychiatric institution. And while he was there, he was having trouble with medications. And so with the diagnosis of schizophrenia, we immediately go to. Well, he was probably having trouble with antipsychotics. It could have been some other medications as well. And so the reason everyone's talking about psychiatric meds is that antipsychotics, in rare instances, can make people homicidal. They have a long history of doing this that is not disputed. This is also in the drug labels for several of these medications for homicidality and suicidality. And that makes this story really interesting from a drug safety perspective, because now, you know, with the. I guess the defense for Nick and also just for figuring out what happened, they need to dive into, you know, is there. Were there signs when he was hospitalized that these drugs were making his mood unstable? Should he have been let out of the hospital, you know, for this Christmas party? And then also, is there an alternative explanation for him doing this, apart from mood instability from the drugs? You know, and they're going to have to start looking at, you know, what was his relationship like with his parents? Was it strained? Were they talking about, I don't know, like a will or something like that? Because it is possible, and this has been shown in multiple lawsuits in the past, that these drugs actually can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. They can be the causal factor for driving violent events like this.

[Lisa Booth]

You know, look, I do think sometimes people have, you know, chemical imbalances. But I think the challenge we're facing is they're. They're given out, like, way too. It's too cavalier. Right. They're not taking it seriously, the impact that these drugs can have on the body. And then you're layering them, too, right? So, you know, Nick, if he's on antidepressants, and then they're giving him drugs for schizophrenia, like, how does some of these drugs overlap with one another? I imagine, you know, the more you're taking, obviously the bigger impact to the body and the mind.

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

Yes, Lisa, you're right. You know, the. The point that you brought up on, like, layering these drugs is. Is a really good one because these drugs are never studied in combination. That. That's not how the FDA looks at them. And it is very common for people to accumulate drugs. I won't be surprised when we finally get maybe some of the Reports from the court when this case goes to trial that Nick may have been on five different medications. Because I certainly see that a lot of the time and there is mass overuse of these medications. Now I think people often suspect this, but they assume that it's safe. They say, well, yes, we use a lot of these medications, but it must be because they're safe. It must be because we've got great long term data on how these drugs help people over time. And the combination of medications, we must have data for that. Listen, I've been at the fda, I've worked in several pharmaceutical companies directly on psychiatric drugs. We don't have any evidence that these medications work any longer than about a year. So that's the first thing that's really concerning there. And so the reason that these drugs are used so much, it's not because there's a great evidence base supporting long term use and combination. It's really because of commercial factors. Back in the 90s we had health insurance companies sort of conglomerate and they started to control the flow of patients and they were able to have doctors, they were able to bid down the price of reimbursement for visits. And for many doctors to make ends meet, that meant they had to see four patients in an hour. And that's still the system we're in today. And when you're dealing with patients who have emotional problems and you have 15 minutes to help them, really the only thing you can do is prescribe a medication. There's no time to really understand someone's problems. There's no time to motivate them to do tried and true non drug approaches, whether it's dietary modification or exercise or socially reconnecting them with people, or doing even things like mind, body work like breathing and meditation, that goes out the window. All you can essentially do is put someone on a medication and adjust the dose up and down or hold it the same. That is why we have 15% of Americans on these medications and 5% of kids on them. It's not because the evidence base really supports it or is strong. It's because of an economic convenience.

[Lisa Booth]

You know, it's interesting because we hear all these stories. I wish I could remember I was reading a column a woman posted. It was in, you know, pretty major publication. I read it like a week or so ago. I'm just remembering it now at the top of my head. And she was writing, you know, posted it in response to the Nick Reiner story and was reminding people how, you know, she got her son on antidepressants and they encouraged her to get her son all these different things and it just like totally made him worse. And you know, there's also articles about this. You know, Chris Burks, she lost her 19 year old son Bryson to suicide. And he, you know, he was a football player, full of energy and all these different things. And he was actually given antidepressants, not for depression, but as a treatment for the pain. And then he tapered off the medication but then ended up committing suicide after that. You know, there's a lot of danger in sort of tapering off of these drugs as well. Sort of what goes through the, the mind or, or, you know, talk about sort of the impact on the body of that time as well.

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

Yeah, yeah. These are two really good stories to talk about that people don't often hear about from their doctors. And so, you know, to touch briefly on the first one, these drugs can definitely make people worse in the short term. I mean, that's why they have black box warnings on them. They. And when you look at the placebo controlled trials, you know, this is, you know, getting a group of people who are put on a placebo, a sugar pill, and you compare them to a group of people put on like the SSRIs. There are more suicide attempts on the group who are taking the antidepressants. And so that's very disturbing because what it's showing is that yes, these drugs, they do lower kind of the symptoms of depression by kind of muting emotions, but that doesn't actually confer, that doesn't lead to less suicide. In fact, it makes it worse. And so when you tell me the story about this woman whose kid got worse on the drugs and became more suicidal, that's the average, that is actually the norm for children on these medications, which is why it's insane. It's absolutely insane that we have 5% of our kids on them. And then when we transition over and we talk about this other case of this healthy football youth who came off the, I think it was Cymbalta for pain and he became suicidal. This is my bread and butter. This is what I do. I help people come off psychiatric medications. And it's becoming more widely talked about now that if you come off these medications too quickly, you can actually cause a neurological injury called protracted withdrawal, which is like having a concussion. It's like you get hit in the head really hard and it can be severely destabilizing. There's something about severe withdrawal symptoms in a small group of people that can set off this electrical storm. In the brain that is just very harmful. And you know, in my space, a lot of people become very suicidal when they're pulled off these medications too quickly.

[Lisa Booth]

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This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive, and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single, affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out [e-mail] that's O-O-O.com Ready to.

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[Lisa Booth]

And there's a difference, too. I mean, isn't it more dangerous for young people than the adults on some of these drugs as well? Because, you know, obviously their. Their minds are forming, their brains are forming. You know, maybe talk about a little bit of the differences between. Or are they. Or are there differences? You know, walk us through that.

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

I mean, there's a lot of. Concerning data about the effects of antidepressants on the developing mind. And I think, gosh, the best way to actually look at this is with the MRI studies. And so just going back to human. Human babies who are born to mothers exposed to SSRIs, all of these drugs cross the placenta. When they do MRI studies of the babies and they compare them to babies who weren't exposed to SSRIs, they find clear differences in the structure of the brain afterwards. This has been confirmed in over 12 MRI studies. They then follow these human kids up to adolescence, and they find that the kids who are, you know, the kids who are exposed in utero, and this is not even like, you know, they stopped the medication during childhood. They have enduring changes in areas of the brain like the amygdala, which are involved in emotional processing. And so that, to me, signals that there, there, there are impacts of exposing the brain to drugs that alter your neurochemistry during this critical period of neurological development. And we've also seen this with monkeys. We've had two huge monkey studies. Well, a huge monkey study is like 30 monkeys. We had a monkey study from the NIMH and also at UC Davis that put juvenile monkeys, young monkeys, on these antidepressants. And they found that it disrupted their sleep. It led to more complacent behavior. They found clear structural changes in the brains afterwards. And there were attentional problems and concentration issues. And so these, you know, it is not a benign thing to put some. To put a developing brain on a chemical for several years and to just take a step back from that. And I can just speak clinically because I take a lot of people off these medications. You Know, I have women in their 40s who have been on since they, you know, they were teenagers. And when they come off, they get hit with all of their emotions. And they say that it's like learning to manage emotions for the first time in their life. So, so they feel emotionally stunted in a way because they've been blunted for such a large period of their life and then they're figuring it all out when they come off. So on multiple levels, it is something that is very concerning.

[Lisa Booth]

You know, you had said something about a year, Mark, earlier in our discussion, and was it that they've not been studied beyond a year or they're not supposed to be used beyond the year.

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

That there's never been a randomized placebo controlled trial that has gone longer than a year. So, you know, most people when they get put on an antidepressant, the doctor says they're safe and effective. And they, and I, and I guess if you're a, you know, a layperson, you might just say, yeah, well, I bet you there was some study where they put people on these meds for maybe five years or maybe even two years, because that's how, you know, when we look at the duration of antidepressant use among users, 70% of them have been on them for two years or more. So I think most people would say, I bet you we have good evidence that these drugs are still working after a couple of years, especially since they cause tolerance and they wear off over time and all of that. But the majority of the studies of these medications, they only last eight to 12 weeks. Those are the short term studies and the longer studies which the FDA uses to say that they're, they're safe for longer term use. They last about 15 months. And I think for many people, their jaws drop when they hear this because, you know, they wish they were told, hey, these are safe and effective for, hey, the 15 months they were studied for. Outside of that, we have no idea what they're doing.

[Lisa Booth]

So what, what does long term on these drugs do to the brain? I mean, does it, does it permanently, people come off them, does it permanently change sort of the, the you know, balance in your brain or, or I guess, are there long term impacts even if you come off them?

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

This is an uncomfortable area. And, and so the truth is I don't have any statistical data or no one has any statistical data because it hasn't been done in a study where there's, you know, a thousand people and there's a clear like denominator. But if we just look at things high level, like if you look at the population level data, as antidepressants have gone up, the rate of suicide has gone up. So what that tells me is these drugs aren't preventing suicide. They might actually be making some people worse over the long run when we look at naturalistic studies. So these aren't experimental. Like, these are where doctors will just follow a group of people over time. Recently, a few years ago, there was a study of 600 Swiss youth and they followed them for 30 years with depression questionnaires. And they found that the kids who were on the antidepressants compared to the kids who didn't take antidepressants, even after controlling for, you know, education level, which is frequently a metric for your, you know, how your, your economic status and how much money you make, and they control for the severity of the depression, family history, even after looking at all of that, they find that the people who take these medications long term actually end up worse. And then if we couple that with the monkey studies, I told you just a moment ago, there are clear changes when you look at what happens to either the monkeys or the humans who are exposed to these medications long term. So, yes, they do appear to be making people worse in the long run. And this has been, you know, this isn't just, you know, you know, me, you know, one person who used to work at the FDA talking about this. This is discussed by, you know, Giovanni Fava, you know, and other psychiatric professors out there who, who have proposed reasons why this is happening. And this also isn't just a unique thing to antidepressants. I mean, when you look at antipsychotics, long term, they cause brain impairment. It's called tardive disease, kinesia. And there's permanent movement disorders. When you look at benzodiazepines, they worsen. These are drugs like Xanax and Klonopin. It's accepted that they worsen anxiety frequently in people over time. If you look at some medications for Parkinson's that affect the dopamine circuits, they can worsen symptoms of Parkinson's long term. And even when you look at things like alcohol and methamphetamine, and to me, when I take all of this together, all I can say is it makes sense because I don't, I do not think the human brain really has, you know, is evolved to handle years or decades in a drugged state without something breaking eventually.

[Lisa Booth]

But yet they've been turned into a lifestyle accessory or, you know, viral content, and you've Contributed to major reporting, including a Wall Street Journal piece about how Gen Z women on TikTok are sort of glamorizing antidepressants and how it's become sort of this cool cultural thing and this normalization of it. But that doesn't, that sort of dilutes the seriousness of it. So I guess, you know, why have the, into sort of a lifestyle accessory and, and why as a society are we, you know, not telling the truth that there's dangers to it as well?

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

Lisa, it's such a good question. And you know, if I put on my hat as a social commentator, somehow like having a mental illness got like swept up into the whole like oppression thing. I mean, we've just come through a 10 year period where, you know, if you're a sexual minority or if you're a certain race or if you're, you know, you know, agenda, you got social, you had, you got a social currency, you got, you know, it was, you were seen to be, you know, oppressed in a way and you know, and, and it mattered and, and people treated you well for it. And so the whole mental health thing got swept up into that and they started saying, oh, you know, these people with mental illness, they're so stigmatized and you know, they really need to be supported. We had big campaigns going like the post your pill campaign a few years ago where everyone was just like, hey, you know, I take Prozac or I take this anti psychotic and they went completely viral. And so, you know, I think people do that because it's incentivized. I think you see it on tv, you see it on media, you see celebrities talk about their medications. I think the general sense is that, you know, if you have a mental illness and you're taking a medication or several medications, you have some kind of, you know, you're a complex person, you're a sensitive person, you have more depth and to you and, and so has become something that we've incentivized people to identify with. And yes, it is dangerous because, you know, at a very simple sense people think it's cool and they think there's some kind of advantage to having to, to taking a medication which, you know, can annihilate your sex drive and cause a whole bunch of problems long term.

[Lisa Booth]

So is your stance that people should never be on them or that we should just treat them with the seriousness that they deserve?

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

Yeah, so I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. I mean, I think we just have to have a very sober view of these medications, they're not fixing any chemical imbalance. There's no serotonin deficits in depression or dopamine deficits in schizophrenia. Essentially what doctors have is an armamentarium of drugs which reliably induce a drug state which can be therapeutic. So especially in the short term. So that's really where they have their strongest use. So you know, if you put someone on a medication like an antidepressant, predictably it induces a numb to state. Now if you have someone who's paralyzed by anxiety, they will experience that as therapeutic. If that anxiety is so severe it's leading to someone being suicidal, they will experience that as being life saving. And so it is a tool. But we also need to understand that when you use drugs to essentially mask symptoms, a whole bunch of issues arise. So firstly the tolerance problems, they wear off over time. And also there's an opportunity cost if you get bad medical care. So what's bad medical care? Bad medical care is you come in, you have these symptoms, you just get put on a drug a lot of the time. These symptoms, especially with anxiety and depression, they're due to very normal things going on in people's lives. You know, they're due to, you know, very poor diets, you know, they're due to a lack of exercise, they're due to social isolation. Sometimes they're due to economic issues and stresses, you know, burnout, you know, difficulty looking after kids. These are all completely real problems that can be really serious of people. And if you just put someone on a drug and you don't help them in their lives, you're essentially just going to make them worse over the long run. Because I don't think these drugs actually help people long term. And so the way I like to think about it is do everything you possibly can without medication. So use all the non drug approaches. If you need to use them in the short term, that's fine, but long term use should be avoided at all costs and only considered when all of the non drug approaches have already been tried and failed.

[Lisa Booth]

What role has Big Pharma played in sort of normalizing and mainstreaming these drugs?

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

Yeah, great question, Lisa. So I always think there's two major forces that have led to the over prescription epidemic. The first one I touched on before, which was how we've, you know, the economics, you know, the health insurance issue driving doctors to want to deliver care in these short visits. But the other big elephant in the room is the drug companies. Now we spend an insane amount of money on mental health each year. I think it's like a $300 billion industry. And if you compare that to the defense budget, I think it's like 90 billion. And so it just eclipses, I mean it's so huge, it's insane. And in that group, the pharmaceutical industry are like the biggest actors. And so these guys have billions of dollars at their disposal to shape the narrative around medications. And the way this happens is, you know, one, they can buy influence with doctors. Many academics at big institutions discover early on that if they work with the drug companies and the drug and they're friendly with them and they run their clinical trials and they don't criticize the medications, there's actually a lot of career advantages. And so you get. And because, and so because of that, a lot of the people who are in charge of the academic institutions at Ivy league universities, people that the public look up to as for advice, they're actually very pro drug because their careers have been built on developing the medications. That's because of big Pharma. Oftentimes you also don't get any coverage of negative stories about medications in the media because the pharmaceutical industry spends a lot of money buying ads and it's just awkward. And broadcasters will avoid this kind of issue. These drug companies, they also pay PR firms as well. So they have a whole series of journalists who are there ready to run cover. So if there is a negative story that comes out about a drug, they will have a whole bunch of, whether it's medical articles or just lay articles in, you know, New York Times, places like that that will say, you know, I can't believe this professor said this drug was so bad. They're actually wrong. They're dangerous. You know, they're scaring people away from medications, they're stigmatizing people. It's like, you know, is that what, what you would imagine if you're a billion dollar industry and you know, your cash cow psychiatric medications, you are going to control that narrative and defend it at all costs. And that's why there's just, I mean these medications are looked at as like darlings right now. You cannot criticize them. You look like you're a cruel person or someone that's against like a modern, safe and life changing intervention. And, and they aren't these things. But that, that's what that sort of money and influence has been able to do in just the cultural narrative.

[Lisa Booth]

I feel like we went through a lot of this with COVID as well, where, you know, if you had questions about Lockdowns or questions about the vaccines. You know, you were sort of shut down and you know, you're labeled anti science or you don't care about people. You know, it's like, I think we kind of all learned how big of a role Big Pharma has on our country and sort of the power of that or even, you know, the power of people like Dr. Fauci previously at the NIH and shutting down research that he doesn't like or, or the fear of scientists and, and studying things who want grants and fearful that that's going to be cut off if they, you know, run afoul of some of these Alphabet agencies. You know, so what do people do? Right, because there's people who are on some of these drugs and you know, they listen to their doctors or maybe they need it in the short term that you laid out previously. You know, how do they get off them? What does that process look like? I know that's part of your expertise in tapering people off these. So, you know, what are your recommendations there?

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

Yeah, so, so what I would recommend is, you know, don't jump off these medications without talking to a doctor or a professional that you trust first. Ideally, you want to prepare yourself to come off by identifying the areas in the life that led to your depression. Sometimes they're super concrete and it's, you know, you're know, bad relationship or a job that you don't like. Other times it can seem like the symptoms come out of nowhere, in which case things like diet, exercise, mindfulness are really, really good. So you want to identify the reason why you're depressed in the first place and try and address, start addressing that with non drug causes. Now afterwards, when you come off these medications, especially if you've been on them for several years, the worst thing that you can do is come off in like two months or something like that. Your brain has taken years to adapt to the presence of this medication. And if you come off quickly like that, many people will go into withdrawal. And typically what happens is the doctor will say, well, you know, we tried to bring you off and now you're having all of these symptoms. This is proof that your underlying depression is coming back. You know, you're chronically mentally ill and you just need to be on these medications for life. For so many people that is not the case. They're simply in drug withdrawal and it could be avoided if they go slower. And so two things that I would recommend you do first is that you start with a 5 or a 10% reduction and so this can be. You can do this in two ways. If you have a tablet, you can get a small jeweler's scale and you can shave off small increments of the tablet with like a, with a razor. And then you can slowly lower it down in 5 to 10 increments. And you just want to listen to your body. If you, so you do a reduction, you wait two weeks. If your symptoms are manageable, then you do another reduction, so on and so forth. And in this way you can slowly bring yourself down. If you start to have a lot of withdrawal symptoms, go up to the last dose that you tolerated, wait a couple of weeks and do a smaller reduction. And when you do it in that way, you're going to make sure that you're moving at a pace that your body can handle. The final thing that I want to mention is that the most challenging part of coming off psychiatric medication is just at the very end when you get to the lowest dose. Typically it's the dose that you started on. That's when most of the drug will start to disconnect from the receptor because there's no longer all this residual drug floating around your brain from the higher doses. You know, when you're at that lowest dose, every time you remove a little bit, you're disengaging a lot of receptors. And so do not be discouraged if it becomes harder at the end. Sometimes that last bit can take just as long as the top, you know, 75% of the taper. And so that last bit just move extra slow. And if, for whatever reason, I mean, if you want to find out, you know, more than this, like a two minute bit that I'm sharing now is you can come over to my YouTube channel. It's Dr. Yosef Jo S E F. And we have just full playlists that completely go through all of these tapering tips on how to come off the medication safely.

[Lisa Booth]

Got to take a quick commercial break. More with Dr. Whit during on the other side.

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[Lisa Booth]

You know, and before we go, we've seen sort of the Make America Healthy again movement and RFK Jr. As health and Human Services secretary, sort of address and touch these previously untouchables, you know, like over, you know, overdependence on some of these drugs or concerns with vaccines or, you know, things that potentially could lead to autism. I know you discussed the dangers of taking these while pregnant, but what do you kind of hope that we get from RFK Jr and from the Trump administration's desire to sort of look under the hood and dig a little deeper on all of these things?

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

You know, the first thing is just that we're having these conversations now. I think a lot of this problem can be solved with just informed consent. You know, just, just with parents knowing, oh, wow, you know, we actually don't know what these drugs do. After about 18 months, if I'm going to put my child, who has a developing brain, you know, on this drug, I want to have crystal clear knowledge that this is going to work. And we don't have that. I think just people knowing that it's going to make a big difference also, you know, adults knowing that. I also think that the, the federal agencies have been so captured by the drug company. I mean, drug companies. I mean, as someone who used to work at the fda, most of the people who work at the fda, like former academics who have gone through, you know, you know, they, they've been groomed essentially by the pharmaceutical industry to look at things in a certain way. They, they exist in this community. And what I see Bobby doing is he's, he's putting very ethical people in charge of these organizations and allowing them to build the team. And so I think if you can get someone really good at the National Institute of Mental Health, we can start to get some really great research. I mean, we may get a long term study on antidepressants. We may get one that compares it to things like exercise, meditation, dietary change. I mean, these are all the things that doctors really want to know so they can help their patients. And so I think informed consent and also just improving the, the leadership within the federal agencies. And I think he's going to do that. I think he's really doing a great job so far.

[Lisa Booth]

Dr. Whit during, thank you so much for your time, sir. We really appreciate it. Very interesting stuff.

[Dr. Joseph Whit Durning]

Thanks Lisa. Thanks for having me. Have a good one.

[Lisa Booth]

That was Dr. Joseph Whit during. Appreciate him for making the time to come on the show. Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week. Also want to thank my producer Jon Cassio for putting the show together. Until next time.

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[Julian Edelman]

Edelman from Games With Names. This message is brought to you by Pizza Hut because if you're yelling Hut on Sundays, why not yo, Pizza first.

[Co-host or Guest with Julian Edelman]

So Pizza Hut just put out one of the coolest, like funniest challenges maybe ever.

[Julian Edelman]

Pizza Hut. What is it?

[Co-host or Guest with Julian Edelman]

Basically, if a quarterback says pizza before they say Hut, Pizza Hut will give that quarterback city a pizza party.

[Julian Edelman]

Is this real?

[Co-host or Guest with Julian Edelman]

Yeah, isn't that crazy?

[Julian Edelman]

You think coaches are bringing this up in team meetings?

[Co-host or Guest with Julian Edelman]

You think a pizza party is worth a false start?

[Julian Edelman]

Or what if they got the other team to jump off sides with a Pizza Hut?

[Co-host or Guest with Julian Edelman]

Hey, whatever it takes this time of.

[Julian Edelman]

Year, a hundred percent this weekend. Let us know if you hear Pizza Hut. I know I'll be listening.

[Lisa Booth]

This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.