Drug Safety Advocates on Mental Health Care

C-SPAN recorded the opening panel of the MAHA Institute's Mental Health and Overmedicalization Summit in Washington, DC (May 2026), where four young adults described harms they attribute to psychiatric drugs taken from childhood or adolescence. Cooper Davis of the Inner Compass Initiative, which organised the panel, said the group is not against medication but for fully informed choice, and that the administration and HHS agencies had consulted it on mental health reform over the past year. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) said psychiatric drug use had doubled in 20 years without matching education or regulation, blamed the pharmaceutical industry's influence in Congress, referred to the House Oversight forum he had just chaired, and said he hoped to introduce legislation within five or six weeks. The moderator, drug safety advocate Kim Witczak, said her husband died by suicide five weeks after being prescribed an antidepressant for insomnia some 22 years earlier, and that she had campaigned for the boxed suicide warnings.

The post-SSRI sexual dysfunction account came from Lauren Friedman, 23, who said she developed PSSD after taking sertraline in 2022. Describing it as an injury to the nervous system rather than low libido, she reported lasting genital numbness, loss of orgasm, and a loss of libido that came on suddenly, together with emotional blunting severe enough that, years later, she says she cannot feel love for her family and friends or pleasure in music. She said sexual side effects affect 50 to 70% of people taking SSRIs; that persistence after stopping is not on US labels; and that a 2018 citizen petition asking the FDA to add it went unanswered (the library has the petition as LIT-020, and its unresolved status in LIT-076). She also said that Eli Lilly knew of permanent sexual and emotional effects and withheld them, that sexual medicine specialists are finding genital fibrosis in people who took SSRIs, that PSSD may be reversible with intervention, and that some people with PSSD have died by suicide: these are her claims, not assessed here. She said her psychiatrist told her afterwards that he knew of PSSD but thought it rare and had not mentioned it, and she called for recognition of the condition, research funding, and written informed consent before psychiatric prescribing, pointing to efforts in Tennessee.

Two panelists described withdrawal. Danielle Gansky, 30, said she was medicated at 7 after a school-prompted ADHD evaluation and was on stimulants, antidepressants, benzodiazepines, mood stabilisers and antipsychotics before 10. At 23 her doctor tapered her SSRI over six weeks, following standard guidance; she described a severe neurological reaction that did not resolve when the drug was reinstated, years of disability, and a current hyperbolic taper in reductions of under 1% at a time. Cameron LaBarre, 35, said he has taken SSRIs for about 26 years, since a diagnosis of anxiety, OCD and Tourette's at 9 (paroxetine for two decades, later escitalopram). He said no one discussed an end point, that attempts to stop as a teenager and in college brought severe panic that was read as relapse, and that a video by the psychiatrist Mark Horowitz led him to see it as withdrawal; he has been tapering for three years and now attributes years of numbness and indifference to the drug. Nick Taber argued that psychiatric labels recast children's reactions to difficult family and school environments as brain disorders, citing a CDC estimate that about 21% of children have a psychiatric diagnosis.

In questions, a urologist in the audience said SSRIs had been promoted to urologists at low doses for premature ejaculation 15 to 20 years earlier, which he took as a sign their sexual effects were known. Asked what government should do, panelists called for boxed warnings on persistent sexual effects and withdrawal, federal evidence-based tapering guidance, written informed consent and research funding.

• “Sexual side effects affect 50-70% of SSRI users” (Lauren Friedman). Reported rates vary widely by study and method; not checked against a specific record.
• “A 2018 citizen petition asking the FDA to label persistent sexual dysfunction was ignored” (Lauren Friedman). LIT-020 (the petition), LIT-076 (still undecided in 2026; a 2024 lawsuit over the delay was dismissed in 2025 on standing).
• “Eli Lilly knew Prozac could cause permanent sexual dysfunction and emotional numbness and withheld it” (Lauren Friedman). No record in the library.
• “PSSD is a nervous system injury, not low libido” (Lauren Friedman). Small studies point to a peripheral-nerve component: corneal confocal microscopy showed peripheral neuropathy in 2 of 3 patients (LIT-040) and nerve damage suggestive of small-fibre neuropathy in Peters' case series (SIDE-002); abnormal quantitative sensory testing (LIT-033); abnormal pudendal evoked potentials in 4 of 16 PFS patients (DISC-013); TRP-channel hypothesis (LIT-026). Against: the Queen Square series found normal pelvic neurophysiology in 8 of 9 PSSD patients and proposes a central mechanism (CUR-003), though its tests don't assess small fibres. No controlled skin-biopsy study yet.
• “PSSD may be reversible with intervention” (Lauren Friedman). Partial improvements only, in single cases or tiny series: laser therapy (LIT-026), electrical stimulation plus shockwave therapy, with central symptoms unchanged (LIT-040).
• “Sexual medicine specialists are finding genital fibrosis after SSRIs” (Lauren Friedman). No record in the library.
• “SSRIs were promoted to urologists at low doses for premature ejaculation” (an audience member (urologist)). CROSS-001 and LIT-026 mention SSRI use for premature ejaculation; promotion to urologists is not documented in the library.