Three mental-health claims from RFK’s wellness movement: what scientists say The Make America Healthy Again movement asserts that over-prescription of drugs for mental-health conditions is rife in the United States. By Heidi Ledford

Three mental-health claims from RFK’s wellness movement: what scientists say The Make America Healthy Again movement asserts that over-prescription of drugs for mental-health conditions is rife in the United States. By Heidi Ledford https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01449-0?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=677edada85-nature-briefing-daily-20260511&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-50432164 Fact-checking MAHA mental-health claims At a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) wellness summit attended by US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, speakers raised concerns about the quality of mental-health treatment in the United States, pointing to issues of overdiagnosis, overmedication and withdrawal. But the true problems are “underdiagnosis and undertreatment”, says Timothy Wilens, a clinical psychiatrist and president-elect of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), who notes that at least one-half of US children with mental-health conditions are not getting the care they need. When it comes to withdrawal, clinicians don’t have enough information because researchers have struggled to find funding for large-scale discontinuation trials, says psychiatrist and AACAP president John Walkup.