by Hannah Furfaro, The Seattle Times/TNS | February 26, 2025
SEATTLE — Washington state health care professionals who treat children are bracing as a new commission launched by President Donald Trump’s administration takes aim at psychiatric drugs.
Earlier this month, an executive order from the White House established a new “Make America Healthy Again Commission,” chaired by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The executive order focuses on the health of American children and calls for “drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease.”
The order has sparked a swirl of concern over youth access to medications that treat depression, anxiety and ADHD. Part of it is angled at examining prescribing practices for SSRIs, antipsychotics and stimulants — drugs that can have side effects but are also critical for many who have struggled to curb debilitating anxiety and thoughts of suicide or harming themselves.”