In 1999 federal, state and local government agencies launched the first massive suicide prevention program. Screening tests were  devised – written by psychiatrists, of course – and those who were “depressed” were urged to take antidepressants and other psychotropic medication.

     Since 2000 the use of prescription drugs by Americans has risen steadily. So has America’s suicide rate, which has also risen steadily since 2000.

     Similar, coincident increases in suicide rates have been discovered in other countries, as well. An Australian research team found in one hundred countries they studied that suicide rates had only increased in countries that had initiated national mental health policies, programs, and legislation.

     Those 76 countries they discovered had higher suicide rates were countries that spent more on mental health, had passed mental health legislation, had a greater number of  psychiatrists and  psychiatric nurses, had more psychiatric beds, and gave more training in mental health to primary care professionals.

     Another analysis of 191 countries found that those countries with “better” psychiatric services also had higher suicide rates.

     A 2016 U.S. Veterans Department study showed that military members who had a “more severe” mental health diagnosis, but were not treated at all by the VA for their “disorder,” had a much lower suicide rate than those service members who had a “less severe” condition, with no  diagnosis, but who were treated with mental health services by the VA.

     A 2013 Military Times report showed that from 2001 to 2009 $1.1 billion was spent by the Defense Logistics Agency on  psychiatric drugs and pain medications. Antidepressants and anticonvulsants were the most commonly prescribed for mental health conditions. These were part of the treatment that was given to the service members with the higher suicide rate after undergoing mental health services by the VA.

     Today prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death for all Americans, right behind heart disease and cancer.

     Suicides are included in those deaths, and the suicide rate for all  Americans increased 37 percent from 2000 to 2022. Nor surprisingly, antidepressant use by Americans increased 65 percent from 2000 until 2014 and then increased by 66 percent from 2016 to 2022.

     Psychiatrists today say that antidepressants increase only suicidal thoughts, not suicides. They only say that, of course, because they have to agree with the black box warnings of their partner in crime, the FDA. They also  apparently agree with the profits of the Big Pharma companies producing those antidepressants whose advisory boards they sit on.

     The rise of America’s suicide rates at the same time as the rise of  Americans’ use of antidepressants cannot just be a coincidence, can it, as these psychiatrists suggest?

     Common sense would tell any one else that’s far more than coincidence.