Is America on Too Many Psychiatric Drugs?

美国是否过度依赖精神类药物?

The Journal.

2025-12-04

22 分钟
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单集简介 ...

As part of a year-long investigation, WSJ’s Shalini Ramachandran and Betsy McKay have been reporting on two of the most commonly prescribed psychiatric medications in America: benzodiazepines and antidepressants. These drugs weren’t intended for long-term use, but some Americans end up on them for years. Betsy and Shalini spoke to many patients who experienced the downsides. So a basic question popped up: Is America overmedicated? Further Listening: - A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick - Uncontrolled Substances, Part 1: Subscribe and Prescribe Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  • On social media, especially TikTok,

  • there's a growing community of young people talking about their antidepressants.

  • I started diving down and pretty quickly came across hashtags like lexapro, girly, and lexaho.

  • Oh, TikTok.

  • Yeah, it was just huge.

  • I'm Betsy McKay.

  • I'm a senior writer covering health and medicine for the Wall Street Journal.

  • And I'm Shalini Ramachandran.

  • I'm an investigative reporter at the Wall Street Journal.

  • For over a year now,

  • Betsy and Shalini have been on an investigative journey into some of the most commonly prescribed medications out there,

  • psychiatric drugs.

  • I mean, we've talked to hundreds of people at this point.

  • We've talked to patients.

  • We've talked to doctors.

  • We've talked to researchers.

  • As they dug into psychiatric drugs,

  • they found that corner of the internet where thousands of people are sharing their positive experiences.

  • On TikTok alone, The hashtag anti-depressants has more than 1.3 billion views.

  • I feel like one thing that Lexbro has, like,