Latest / Radically Genuine / 195. My FDA Panel Testimony on Antidepressants in Pregnancy - And the Media Response
Transcript
- Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (00:02.136) Welcome to the radically genuine podcast. I'm Dr. Roger McPhillen. So today I'm going to take you inside one of the most important conversations I believe is happening in medicine right now. And definitely one that the pharmaceutical industry desperately wants to keep buried. And if you're following along or reading the narratives about what happened a couple of weeks ago at the FDA panel for SSRIs and pregnancy, you can feel the desperation. So I had the privilege of participating in an FDA expert panel on SSRIs and pregnancy, which is telling in itself. So the fact that I am there is meaningful. So take a second just to consider that of all the people in the world, professionals, medical professionals, psychologists, OBGYNs, so forth. I was chosen to be on that panel, knowing what I know and openly sharing what I share, the fact that the U S government our FDA wanted me to be heard is meaningful. And what happened during the panel and the media hit job that followed reveals everything you need to know about how the system protects profits over people. But first, let me be crystal clear about something. I don't think this is just about pregnant women, because it's going to be about SSRIs in general in the pharmaceutical industry. This is about how we've systemically medicalized human emotions. in particular women's emotions and turned natural responses to life's challenges to aging into billion dollar markets for pharmaceutical companies. In my opinion, the stakes couldn't be higher. We're talking about in this situation, chemically altering developing babies brains during the most critical period of human development. And we're doing it without proper warnings, without adequate long-term studies and to be clear like without honest conversations about the risks. So the fact that we started having these conversations I think is a giant leap forward. So let me paint the picture of what led to this panel. Commissioner Dr. Marty McCary and I have to give him credit for this. Called together experts to examine a question I think that Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (02:29.548) should really put us all on alert. What are we doing to developing babies when we provide pregnant women these drugs? Now this is critically important because we're talking about the most vulnerable. I think this is low hanging fruit. Like when we talk about what we're going to want to emphasize most from a policy perspective, I think it is protection of the most vulnerable. Because when you start number one, mass prescribing drugs to children and adolescents, we know that you are permanently altering, potentially permanently altering development during key stages. So you're actually creating sick adults by what we're doing during these critical stages. And the simple fact that we're also just impairing their natural abilities to experience emotions, to relate interpersonally. And when you interfere with the serotonergic system, it's a complex system that medical professionals don't even know what they're doing. We don't even fully understand it. That's how complex it is. And so what are the consequences of that? But when you provide it to women of childbearing years and you provide it to pregnant women, now you are interfering with the most vulnerable, which is the unborn. And to me, the numbers are staggering. I think when, we're nearly one in four women who are on antidepressants during childbearing years, that is absolutely frightening. Now the statistics say use up to 5 % of women, up to 5 % of pregnant women are in SSRIs. That is grossly underestimated. I mean, that is absolutely grossly underestimated. It can't be true. If you're, if you're a one of five or one of four women who are on these drugs and not a lot of pregnancies are planned. And if you are, you know, blessed enough to be able to plan that out, I mean, it takes so long to get off of an SSRI to do it in a safe way. So, I mean, we're talking about a significant amount of babies that are exposed to these chemicals in utero. We have no randomized controlled trial showing these drugs are even effective during pregnancy. And that's telling anyone who says, Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (04:53.006) that this drug prevents postpartum depression or treats depression is like clearly they're telling, they're lying. I mean, when you don't have the evaluation, when you don't have the studies, how do you come to those conclusions? So think about it, we're conducting a massive uncontrolled experiment on the most vulnerable members of our society based on what exactly? Marketing claims, ideology, professional guidelines written by... pharmaceutical conflicts of interest or the pharmaceutical industry themselves. I mean, they fund the major mental, they fund the major medical organizations that doctors are relying upon. So I do want to play the first audio clip, which is Commissioner Marty McCary's opening remarks about the scale of the problem. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (00:11.384) Okay, did hear that? So never before in human history have we chemically altered developing babies like this. And that's not me talking, that's FDA commissioner acknowledging we're in uncharted territory. But here's what really got my attention. Because he began to address and discuss the topic of root causes. He mentioned healthy relationships, communities, natural light exposure. He acknowledged that the more antidepressants we prescribe, the more depression we see. This is a revolutionary admission from the highest levels of the FDA. So maybe, just maybe, we're not actually solving the problems we claim to be treating. Now, going into this panel, I knew I was going to be one of the dissenting voices. Most of the other panelists, while... raising legitimate concerns about specific risks were still operating within the medical model framework. They were debating risk benefit ratios within a system that assumes that these drugs work at all. So I decided to go with a different message entirely. Okay, so let's just pause here and I'll have you hear my five minutes. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (08:04.662) Okay, so let me break down what I was really saying there. Because NBC, the pharmaceutical media, sure as hell not going to do it, present it accurately. So I ended up abandoning my slides because I was realizing that the medical professionals that were there were going to be just discussing statistics, ratios, cost benefit analysis. But I think the entire paradigm is flawed. So tell me how do you accurately create a research study when you can't even identify really what this major depressive disorder is? Remember, there is no test. You're relying on some form of self-report. This allows for such overwhelming degree of bias that you apply it to anyone who is suffering, and we do. So I've challenged the premise that depression is a discrete testable medical condition in which all this data was discussed in the first place. There's no blood test for depression, no brain scan, no objective marker. You go into a medical center and you spend eight to 10 minutes with a provider, fill out a checklist about emotional experiences and walk out with a diagnosis and a prescription. Second, I pointed out that something that should be obvious but somehow isn't, we've medicalized normal human responses to abnormal circumstances. Someone loses a job, goes through a divorce. experiences trauma, faces major life transitions, feels sad, anxious, or overwhelmed. My point is that's not pathological, it is human. But here's the part that really triggered the pharmaceutical defenders. I asked, why are women prescribed these drugs at rates so dramatically higher than men? Because I'm just gonna, here we go, how do you answer that question from the mainstream left? that wants to divide us on all these issues, right? That wants to create labels and categories and then dismiss you. Well, this is a woman's issue. Well, the way you're going to do that obviously is there is a man who's describing it. So certainly NBC wanted me to look like a misogynist, which they cut off my quote, but it's a critical question. Why are these drugs? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (10:31.404) so dramatically higher than men? Is it because women have some genetic predisposition to chemical imbalances? Or is it because women naturally experience emotions more intensely and we've turned that gift into a symptom? I think this is anti-human. Anything that has an attack on life is anti-human. I called women's emotional depth a gift, not a disease. And that statement, that simple acknowledgement of women's emotional strength sent the pharmaceutical establishment to full panic mode. While I was presenting the psychological and social perspective, other panelists were dropping scientific bombshells that should have made front page news everywhere. Instead, they were buried under pharmaceutical damage control. Dr. Adam Urato, a maternal fetal medicine physician, he laid out the evidence. SSRIs freely across the placenta and enter developing fetal brains. Serotonin plays a crucial role in fetal organ development. We can literally see the effects on ultrasound. SSRI exposed fetuses move differently. 12 consecutive MRI studies show these drugs alter developing brain structure. Then there was Dr. Jay Gingrich. He presented his research showing that while these drugs might help mothers? Might? There's no evidence they improve outcomes for the babies and some evidence they might make things worse. Children exposed to SSRIs and utero showed increased rates of depression in adolescents and different brain activation patterns on MRIs. Dr. David Healy pointed out that back in 2009, a jury found that Paxil caused birth defects, costing the manufacturer over a billion dollars. Yet since then, Five times more women are taking SSRIs during pregnancy than before that verdict. Because that information is held from you folks. People like me know it. I mean, I'm knee deep in it. But how many people actually are exposed to this? No, you're exposed to that narrative, the hit pieces from the LA Times, the New York Times, NBC News, and then all the other fun Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (12:58.744) pharma-funded news outlets. That's what people are exposed to. Dr. Michael Levin, a developmental biologist, explained how SSRIs disrupt the early embryotic signaling that determines which side of the body is left versus right, potentially causing organ defects in up to 40 % of exposed embryos. This isn't some fringe science. These are world-renowned experts presenting peer-reviewed research at an FDA panel. The evidence was so overwhelming that we're altering fetal brain development. in ways we don't even fully understand with consequences we're only beginning to recognize. So with all this scientific evidence on the table, with clear documentation of risks to developing babies, with admission from the FDA that we're conducting an unprecedented experiment on fetal brains, what did the mainstream media focus on? Me saying that women's emotional intensity is a is a gift rather than a symptom. NBC News, network whose existence depends entirely on pharmaceutical advertising dollars, published a hit piece titled FDA Panel Promotes Misinformation About Antidepressant Drugs in Pregnancy. And when are they going to wake up? Don't they understand that using that word misinformation is a clue to all of us? It like right away, we know it's fake, but they're too dumb and they keep using it. Who gets to determine what's information? NBC News gets to determine what is real information versus misinformation, but the panel experts who are there presenting their life's work, but they're deliberately lying? For what purpose? What actual purpose? What motivation, what incentive would Dr. Adam Riorato lead him to lie? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (15:00.984) And I know the man, he's a good man. And why would I lie? Like, what do I get out of this? For anyone who wants to say I'm a grifter or make money off of this, you don't make money off of this stuff. You put your professional reputation out there. I choose to speak from the heart because I want to be able to sleep at night because my loyalty on this earth is not to the pharmaceutical industry. This puts my livelihood at risk and it has since I began talking about it. I put myself, I placed myself vulnerable to all this. No one's making money off of this. By being honest. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (15:42.446) So you have to ask that question, but there are people that are making money off of this, and this is those who accept pharmaceutical dollars, who their entire profession, the way they make money is by prescribing these drugs or conducting research. Like if you have any conflicts of interest, you shouldn't be on a panel like that. And we saw that with Dr. K. I can't remember her last name, but it was just such a dark energy coming off of her reading the pharmaceutical narrative. I said in the second part, I'm not going to play that for you, but we had some opportunities for debating back and forth. I said, I felt like I'm in a time portal and woke up in 1999. I mean, she was, she was repeating the same playbook, the same narrative over and over again. And it was all fear mongering. Like the idea that your depression is going to harm your baby and not the drugs. Does anyone really believe that? Well, we do because we've created that in consciousness. Like we have doctors saying your depression is going to create, create maternal fetal stress and that's what's going to alter the baby. No evidence to support that. God, forget the fact that we've evolved for millennial and we've been in as human beings have like, we then have been pregnant in the most adverse situations, war, famine, immigration, being alone without a father who died, her husband that died. mean, my God, it's like, those babies are protected. Your stress, your fetal stress is going to harm the baby? Evil, dark. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (17:28.29) So they quoted me suggesting depression wasn't an illness, but rather a product of women just naturally experiencing their emotions more intensely. And then smugly added that I made this claim without evidence. The evidence? Like what, you need a link to tell somebody that like emotions are natural parts of living and we go through pain in this life? Do you need a link to know that these people are being prescribed these drugs? and labeled with major depressive disorder because they filled out a checklist that was created by the pharmaceutical companies in five to 10 minutes that there's no context whatsoever. You're not sitting there with an hour, hour and a half, 90 minutes, multiple followups, getting the whole entire picture. We're talking about eight to 10 minutes, folks. What, you need a link for that? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (18:23.864) I wasn't dismissing women's struggles. I was defending women against a predatory system that pathologizes their emotional reactions to adverse events. And I believe that those emotional reactions are there to serve them. I do think it's a valid indicator of things you're gonna need to face in life. And it might even be valid indicators of other medical conditions we need to face. But what happens when you become absolutely disconnected from that? You become sick and you never solve the problem. And that's why you'll stay sick and you'll stay a customer forever and you're surrendering your autonomy to the medical authority. I was questioning why we're diagnosing emotional responses to real problems as brain diseases that require a drug. Is it that obvious? It's obvious. I put it out there, but NBC couldn't let that narrative survive because it threatens their business model. Their prime time programming is wall to wall drug commercials. Their medical correspondents are essentially pharmaceutical spokespeople with journalism degrees. It's ridiculous. This hit job reveals something much, much bigger than just media bias. It shows how the system protects itself when challenged. So think about the playbook. Take the most threatening message out of context. Miscaracterize the messenger as anti-science or dangerous. How do they do that? Well, you call me a podcaster, you don't recognize that I'm a clinical psychologist with 20 years experience. You call me right wing because I was mentioned on Joe Rogan or I was on Ali Beth Stuckey's relatable podcast or the cultural apothecary, right? just, you, you just paint me as an extremist without qualification. You ignore all the actual scientific evidence presented. Instead, you just, you know, labeled as misinformation. And then you protect that profit stream at all costs. And they did that because my message. that emotional depth, women's emotional depth is a strength, not pathology. That threatens the foundation of a multimillion dollar industry built on pathologizing normal human experiences and then putting you into conflict with those experiences, creating an internal struggle. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (20:39.338) If women's tears of their emotions, men too, if they're not symptoms of a mental illness, but rather an energy and natural response to their experiences. If their mood fluctuations aren't brain diseases, but normal rhythms, and we have the capacity to even learn how to regulate them, because I know we do. That's what I've spent my life's work on. If their emotional struggles aren't chemical imbalances, but growth opportunities. certainly requiring support, certainly requiring understanding, even in some cases requiring professional intervention, then Pfizer's stock price becomes a problem. The real coercion I was talking about isn't some conspiracy theory. It's doctors seeing five patients per hour to maintain profitability, screening tools designed by pharmaceutical companies to increase positive results, medical training sponsored by drug manufacturers, professional guidelines written by researchers with pharmaceutical conflicts, insurance systems that pay for bills. but not comprehensive care. I'm sorry, insurance systems that pay for pills, but not comprehensive care. And a culture that teaches people to fear their own internal experiences. So this is what this means for you, whether you're a woman considering pregnancy, currently pregnant, or supporting someone who is, here's what you need to know. So first you have the right to complete honest information about these drugs. not marketing spin disguised as medical advice, but the full picture of risks and benefits. You have the right to know that there are no randomized controlled trials proving these drugs work during pregnancy. If you listen to my podcast, you know my opinion. There has never been studies that prove in that their work. It's easy to manipulate this to create a statistical difference between a placebo. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (22:49.23) and a drug. And then when you hide, conceal very important details about drug reactions, mislabel them, keep people out of your studies, manipulate the study to have the most, the people who are struggling the most not be included. And then when you mischaracterize, and this is the most insidious part, when you rip somebody off these drugs and you induce withdrawal and then you tell them that is relapse, that is what they, Dr. K Ross did not talk about. It's not a relapse, it's pharmaceutical withdraw, you knucklehead. How can you be so ignorant? How can you be a physician and be so stupid? These are powerful chemical agents that knock you out of homeostasis. You induce a chemical imbalance in the brain that impacts so many aspects of your body. Then the body tries to seek out homeostasis again. There's dependency on this chemical. And then you rip it away again. It completely throws your entire nervous system into chaos. And then you characterize that as relapse? Relapse? My goodness. I mean, how disconnected do you have to be from each other and humanity to take that perspective? I mean, how do you ever trust somebody who can repeat something so absurd, along with the chemical imbalance theory absurdity? Thank God people are waking up. You have the right to know that 12 MRI studies show they alter fetal brain development. You have the right to know that we can see changes in fetal movement patterns like on these ultrasounds. You have the right to know that the chemical imbalance theory these drugs are based on was never proven. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (24:51.5) It's a marketing. God, it's, you can tell that there were people up there who were just pharmaceutical salespeople. Even like the like energy around it. there was fear. In fact, the recent comprehensive reviews have found no evidence that depression is caused by low serotonin levels. So clearly you're interfering with something that should not be interfered with. Mess with nature, you're gonna have to deal with the consequences. So most importantly, have the right to trust your own instincts about what's best for you and your baby. Don't let these either ignorant people or these sociopaths coerce you. It's one of the other, right? One, you're just ignorant. You're just following along, hypnotically repeating the same messages that you were brainwashed by without thought. I mean, I can almost word for word, tell you exactly what they're going to say. That's not their own thinking. They're not thinking for themselves. They're not independent. They are repeating marketing messages. So that's ignorance. And then if you do know, and you have studied this, you put the time in and you, and you prescribe them anyway. then you've detached your sociopath. When that voice inside you questions whether exposing your developing child to psychoactive chemicals is the right choice, it's not mental illness talking, right? That's your own internal wisdom. So none of this means abandoning women who are struggling. It just means that we can be open to other ways of supporting women without a pharmaceutical band-aid with consequences. So what could an authentic Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (26:37.408) mental health support look like or other interventions? Well, addressing the root causes of the distress instead of medicating the symptoms, right? Often, like these are real addressable concerns in relationships, finances, lifestyle. Sometimes the simple fact, and I've learned this myself, when you kind of validate the experience and you get women to... like no longer enter into that internal battle with their emotions. Well, you begin to self-regulate. mean, this is, you just calm down and you get more attentive to the intuition and the strength that exists within you. So teaching emotional regulation skills instead of emotional suppression, building supportive communities instead of isolating individuals dependent on pills, validating women's emotional experience instead of pathologizing them. How about a look at lifestyles that include nutrition, sun exposure, movement, exercise, spirituality, all these things that have been necessary, a connection to nature. All these things have been necessary throughout the course of all human history. The anti-human transhumanist movement wants to detach you from them. How about providing adequate social support during major life transitions, especially pregnancy? motherhood. The tragedy isn't that women struggle emotionally. The tragedy is that we've convinced them that their struggles are evidence of biological defects. This FDA panel was supposed to be about protecting pregnant women and their babies. Instead, it revealed how a captured regulatory system, compromised media, and profit-driven pharmaceutical industry all work together to suppress inconvenient truths. But here's, you know, here is where I'm optimistic. Something is shifting. People are waking up to the fact that depression rates skyrocket alongside antidepressant prescriptions. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (28:51.854) They're questioning why emotional pain gets medicated instead of understood. They're wondering why we're chemically altering developing babies without proper warnings or long-term side effects. We're all feeling the fear-based messaging. You can feel it. We all can. The pharmaceutical media complex is starting to get desperate, which is why we're deploying, why they're deploying character assassination against anyone who challenges their pro... Profitable orthodoxy. Go to the LA Times and see how they presented me. I thought it was fascinating. You can tell. Absolutely tell they were threatened. I think they actually spoke about how appealing my message is. Because people will be able to sense truth, sense honesty, love. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (29:45.474) But here's what they're not. Here's where they don't understand because every hit piece, every distortion, every attempt to silence descending voices only proves how desperately they need to to protect their lives. Truth's getting out. Women are reclaiming their right to feel deeply, to trust their instincts, to make informed choices about their bodies and their babies. There's no amount of pharmaceutical propaganda can stop that awakening. It's coming. I know if you're listening to this podcast right now, you're already awake and you can feel this. Send it to somebody who's not awake yet. Keep questioning, keep resisting and keep demanding better for yourself and our children.