Dr. Alok 'Dr. K' Gupta

Now, RFK Jr.

has been saying that we overmedicate psychiatric patients way too much, has been sort of concerned about stimulants, concerned about SSRIs.

And I think this is another example of like, I'm not entirely disagreeing with the guy.

I do think that we tend to reach for psychotropic medications regularly.

way faster than we should.

But I think the real problem with things like SSRIs is that we sort of don't develop a comprehensive treatment plan that incorporates all kinds of other things.

I think SSRIs are great medications, and I think we overprescribe them.

So SSRIs increase the risk of autism spectrum disorder by about 80%.

Some studies show that they basically double the risk of autism spectrum disorder, which sounds really scary, right?

But when we look at the data, we see a lot of things around statistics that are counterintuitive.

Even though SSRIs basically double the risk, 99% of people who are on SSRIs during pregnancy will not have autistic children.

And about 99% of people who give birth to autistic children were not on SSRIs.

Now, how can that be?

So if we look at the data, let's just take a look at the actual numbers, okay?

So this is the group of people who are autistic, prenatally exposed to SSRIs, right?

This is 14.

And prenatally unexposed to SSRIs.

So in this one study, there are 14 people out of 1,679 who were exposed to SSRIs who ended up with autism.

But 1,665 people

People who are autistic in this study were never exposed to SSRIs.