A Tennessee bill that would require a county medical examiner’s office to determine and document the drug use, including that of psychotropic drugs, by a deceased person suspected of a mass shooting is now headed to Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s desk.
SB1146/HB1349 also directs “the University of Tennessee’s health science center to study drug interactions between the psychotropic drugs and any other drugs present in the deceased individual’s system.”
Additionally, the bill requires the state Department of Health to “disclose the psychotropic drug use of the individual to the public upon request.”
The legislation passed the state House Thursday in a 76-20 vote after having passed the state Senate in a 27-5 vote.
AbleChild, a nonprofit that co-drafted the bill along with Amy Miller, former director of now-Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Reform Pharma initiative, says the measure focuses on “subjective psychiatric labels assigned, and drug ‘treatment’ prescribed” to children.
The bill also targets “systemic failures in mental health care and public safety” and the role of the behavioral health and Big Pharma industries in mass violence, the group adds.
“The law amends Tennessee codes to prioritize transparency over privacy in cases of mass violence, directly challenging pharmaceutical and behavioral health industries to confront potential links between their products and practices and public safety risks,” AbleChild asserts, pointing out that the bill is “part of its national campaign to focus on HIPAA exceptions for perpetrators of mass violence, ensuring public access to critical drug histories, expose conflicts of interest between mental health organizations and pharmaceutical funding, and combat off-label prescribing and unsafe psychotropic drug use in vulnerable populations, including children in foster care.”
While the bill ultimately passed with significant bipartisan support, the issue of privacy vs. public safety was hotly debated early on.
AbleChild co-foundress Sheila Matthews said in the group’s news release that the legislation has the potential to have “ripple effects” throughout the nation.
“This law isn’t just about Tennessee—it’s a blueprint for dismantling the wall of secrecy protecting industries that profit from ignorance,” Matthews said. “When someone commits mass murder, the public has a right to know if mind-altering drugs played a role.”
Miller added that the measure is ultimately “about preventing the next tragedy.”
“Ignoring the role of experimental psychotropic drugs helps no one—except corporations profiting from the status quo,” she said.
While pointing out that Wyoming is already considering similar legislation using AbleChild’s model, the group foresees that its wider consideration could lead to even greater scrutiny of pharmaceutical industry practices, as well as “stricter guidelines” for the prescription of drug “cocktails” that may not have been tested.
During Kennedy’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Tina Smith, D-MN, claimed Kennedy had previously said he believed “antidepressants cause school shootings,” and asked if he still believed that to be so.
Kennedy responded, however, that what he had previously said was “it should be studied along with other potential culprits, like – “
Smith cut him off.
The now-HHS secretary then said he would not have made the statement put forward by Smith “because there is no science on that” and that her claim there is “science” that already has concluded there is no link between anti-depressants and school shootings is unfounded because, due to HIPAA laws, “nobody knows.”
“The truth belongs to the living,” Matthews said. “No industry should be allowed to hide behind HIPAA when lives are at stake and HIPAA has public safety exceptions.”
Writing for the column known as “The DisInformation Chronicle,” clinical and pediatric psychologist Gretchen LeFever Watson asserted that Smith had cited a pharmaceutical non-profit’s study to support her claim, and, ultimately, gave “false information about the benefits of psychotropic medications, placing America’s children at risk.”
“All of us should be grateful if Senator Smith herself would stop spreading lies and misinformation about the known links between antidepressants and violence, facts which anyone can find by reading the scientific literature and the FDA-approved labels for these medicines,” Watson wrote. “As the former head of psychological assessment services at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters, in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, I have long been concerned about the dangers of psychotropic drugs (antidepressants, stimulants, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers). Like Secretary Kennedy, I welcome more research in this area.”
Similarly, investigative journalist Maryanne Demasi, PhD, noted that Smith continued to push her agenda by leading a letter in March calling upon Kennedy to “adhere to the well-established and widely accepted scientific and medical consensus” on the issue of the benefits of psychotropic drugs for children.
“Consensus?” Demasi asked. “This is precisely the problem—they are appealing to authority to shut down inquiry rather than fostering critical examination.”
Prior to Smith’s letter, the Make America Health Again (MAHA) Commission, which President Donald Trump established via executive order, was directed to assess, among other issues, “the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.”
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