Usage of psychiatric drugs goes up all the time, almost like a law of nature. This does not reflect genuine needs for the drugs but drug marketing and corruption of doctors, drug agencies, the media, medical journals, politicians, and the science.1,2
We have a mental health crisis because the existing approaches that focus on drugs are not working and worsen the outcomes.3 In the UK, mental health disability has almost trebled in recent decades, and the gap in life expectancy between people with severe mental health issues and the general population has doubled.4 The United Nations and the World Health Organisation have therefore recently called for systematic mental health reform emphasising psychosocial interventions, human rights, no coercion and informed consent.4,5
The forces that result in overdiagnosis and overmedication of our populations are so strong that it is usually impossible to do anything effectively to lower the drugging. But in Denmark, after many years with a steadily increasing sales curve, the number of children and adolescents in treatment with depression pills decreased by 41%, from 2010 to 2016.6 In the same period, the number of children in treatment in Norway increased by 40% and in Sweden by 82% (see figure).
In 2011, I began to warn strongly against the increased suicide risk of depression pills in children and adolescents after Lundbeck’s CEO in a radio broadcast had claimed that the pills protect against suicide.6 I repeated my warnings countless times on radio, in TV, articles, books and lectures and told people not to use these drugs.6
This might have played a role for the decline in usage in Denmark, as no one in Norway or Sweden did anything similar. In 2011, the Danish Board of Health reminded family doctors that they should not write prescriptions for depression pills for children, which was a task for psychiatrists. But as they had done this before, to little effect, this was likely not the reason for the marked decline in usage.
However, the media lost interest in this issue, which made it more difficult for me to repeat my warnings. I hoped doctors had learned a lesson they wouldn’t forget, but usage went up again (see figure).
As the Danish Drug Statistics have changed their age intervals for reporting, I could not show the updated data for the 0-19 years age group. I have shown the usage data for people up to 24 years of age,7 which is a highly relevant age group because the FDA issued a black box warning in 2004, updated in 2006, about the increased suicide risk of depression drugs in this age group.
It is disturbing that when there are no longer any warnings in the media, the dark forces take over again. The usage of depression pills in young people is now larger than ever before in Denmark.
Leading professors of psychiatry in the whole world continue to lie about what these drugs do to people claiming that they protect against suicide.1,6 And as guidelines and so-called suicide experts continue recommending depression drugs for people at risk of suicide,1 it is not surprising that suicide prevention programmes all over the world have increased suicides.8,9
Depression pills double the risk of suicide, both in children10,11 and adults.12,13 Can anything be worse than driving children to suicide with pills that don’t work for them10,11 while telling them that the pills protect against suicide? It is a betrayal so deep that I don’t know what to say other than what I said in 2014 in a major Danish newspaper article translated into English.14 It ended this way:
Our citizens would be far better off if we removed all the psychotropic drugs from the market, as doctors are unable to handle them. It is inescapable that their availability creates more harm than good. Psychiatrists should therefore do everything they can to treat as little as possible, in as short time as possible, or not at all, with psychotropic drugs.
References
1 Gøtzsche PC. Is psychiatry a crime against humanity? Copenhagen: Institute for Scientific Freedom; 2024 (freely available).
2 Gøtzsche PC. Whistleblower in healthcare. Copenhagen: Institute for Scientific Freedom 2025; April 8 (freely available).
3 Whitaker R. Anatomy of an Epidemic, 2nd edition. New York: Broadway Paperbacks; 2015.
4 Shifting the balance towards social interventions: a call for an overhaul of the mental health system. Beyond Pills All-Party Parliamentary Group 2024; May.
5 New WHO guidance calls for urgent transformation of mental health policies. WHO 2025; March 25.
6 Gøtzsche PC. Usage of depression pills almost halved among children in Denmark. Mad in America 2018; May 4.
8 Whitaker R. Suicide in the age of Prozac. Mad in America 2018; Aug 6.
9 Whitaker R, Blumke D. Screening + drug treatment = increase in veteran suicides. Mad in America 2019; Nov 10.
10 Gøtzsche PC. Deadly psychiatry and organised denial. Copenhagen: People’s Press; 2015.
11 Gøtzsche PC, Healy D. Restoring the two pivotal fluoxetine trials in children and adolescents with depression. Int J Risk Saf Med 2022;33:385-408. Full article available here.
12 Hengartner MP, Plöderl M. Newer-generation antidepressants and suicide risk in randomized controlled trials: a re-analysis of the FDA database. Psychother Psychosom 2019;88:247-8.
13 Hengartner MP, Plöderl M. Reply to the Letter to the Editor: “Newer-Generation Antidepressants and Suicide Risk: Thoughts on Hengartner and Plöderl’s ReAnalysis.” Psychother Psychosom 2019;88:373-4.
14 Gøtzsche PC. Psychiatry gone astray. Mad in America 2014; Jan 28.
