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Deprescribing has become a federal priority in 2026, via a February consensus and an HHS plan.

In a national cohort, half the youth started on antipsychotics for ADHD had not tried a stimulant first.

The fixable failure is sequencing: riskier drugs going in before safer, better-studied ones.

Psychiatry spent 2026 arguing about volume. In February, the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology published a consensus statement on deprescribing psychotropic medications. In May, the Department of Health and Human Services announced an action plan to “curb psychiatric overprescribing.” The American Psychiatric Association answered that the bigger crisis is people who can’t get care at all.

I was interviewed for AAMCNews this month about where I land. Both sides are counting prescriptions. The data I’ve worked with for a decade point to a narrower variable that does more harm to children: which prescription comes first.

Half had never tried the first-line drug

In 2019, my colleagues and I published a national study in JAMA Network........

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