Rep. Matt Gaetz said this week that he wonders if the recent spate of mass shootings, such as at a Nashville school last month and at a Louisville bank on Monday are results from the work of Big Pharma.
Speaking on Monday on his podcast “Firebrand,” the Fort Walton Beach Republican suggested that easy access to mind-altering drugs are making both society more dangerous and drugmakers more wealthy.
The GOP congressman noted that Democrats instinctively and reflexively blame gun owners and Second Amendment proponents.
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But the answer is not that simple, argued Gaetz, adding what if the culprits are pharmaceutical executives.
“My first question would be: Are these people on SSRIs [or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a type of antidepressant]? Are they taking anti-anxiety medications or antidepressants?”
“We are the most drugged-up generation in all of human history — and these drugs are being handed out like candy, not behind some Walmart, or on some street corner, but by Big Pharma,” Gaetz continued.
“And Big Pharma knows there are a lot of side effects to these drugs that they push that can cause psychosis, and even make feelings of suicide and depression and violence all the more acute.”
Gaetz asserted that many mass shooters are on these drugs or were for some long period of time.
Instead of “thoughtful parenting” or “behavioral modification,” as once may have been used on a troubled youngster, the go-to response now is “converting to some sort of chemical solution,” he said.
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He added that that leads to a “lifetime of dependence, and side effects, and cascading consequences, sometimes lethal.”
That also applies to treatment for gender dysphoria, Gaetz said.
“Maybe shooting people full of hormones doesn’t make them less likely to shoot us,” he continued.
“Just what a mentally unstable person needs: massive mood swings caused by hormone therapy. It’s quite literally a recipe for mass violence, and frequently.”
“Big Pharma is out of control, and this country has a major mental healthcare problem,” Gaetz said.
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“It seems the more we take drugs for our mental healthcare, the more mentally unhealthy we become. … Maybe they have to sell the virus before they sell the antidote.”
Or, he added, “Maybe the whole regime of Big Pharma is built on this fiction that they have to convince us that we are so broken, and fragile, and frail, that we have to take these drugs forever to be functioning in society.”
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