SSRIs, Pregnant Women & Teens

Today at 3pm on Docket & Dose - IPAK-EDU Webinar

SSRIs, Pregnant Women & Teens

A Docket & Dose Webinar with Kim Witczak, Wayne Rohde & Dr. James Lyons-Weiler

Thursday, May 7, 2026 — 3 PM ET

What are patients, parents, pregnant women, and teenagers actually told before psychiatric medications are prescribed?

What do FDA warnings say?
What risks remain disputed, minimized, delayed, or poorly communicated?
What happens when marketing, medicine, regulation, and informed consent collide?

On this episode of Docket & Dose, Wayne Rohde and Dr. James Lyons-Weiler are joined by drug-safety advocate Kim Witczak for a direct, evidence-focused conversation on SSRIs, pregnancy, adolescent prescribing, withdrawal, black-box warnings, and the ethics of informed consent.

Kim Witczak brings a uniquely important perspective to this discussion. After the death of her husband shortly after being prescribed Zoloft, she became one of the nation’s most recognized independent advocates for pharmaceutical transparency and patient safety. Her work helped elevate national attention on antidepressant-associated suicidality concerns and informed-consent failures. She later served multiple terms as a Consumer Representative on the FDA Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee and testified before Congress and the U.S. Senate on drug-safety reform.

Topics Include

• SSRIs and pregnancy risk communication

• Adolescent antidepressant prescribing and black-box warnings

• Withdrawal, tapering, and dependence concerns

• Akathisia, suicidality, emotional blunting, and adverse-event recognition

• Pharmaceutical marketing and public perception

• FDA oversight and psychopharmacology advisory processes

• Informed consent: what patients are told vs. what labels contain

• The role of litigation, internal documents, and discovery in uncovering safety concerns

• The expanding use of psychiatric medications in youth populations

• Ethics, transparency, and the future of drug-safety accountability

This conversation is not about denying treatment or dismissing mental suffering. It is about whether patients and families receive complete, comprehensible, evidence-based information before life-altering medical decisions are made.

At a time when psychiatric prescribing continues to expand across younger populations and pregnant women remain among the most medically vulnerable groups, questions surrounding long-term safety, withdrawal, developmental outcomes, and informed consent have become impossible to ignore.

Whether you are a clinician, researcher, policymaker, parent, patient, advocate, or simply someone trying to understand how medicine, regulation, and public messaging intersect, this discussion matters.

Featured Guest

Kim Witczak
Drug Safety Advocate • Former FDA Advisory Committee Consumer Representative • Co-Founder of Woodymatters • Speaker • Author • Marketing & Communications Professional

Connect with Kim:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimwitczak/

Website:
https://www.kimwitczak.com/

#DocketAndDose #SSRIs #DrugSafety #InformedConsent #PatientSafety #FDA #Pregnancy #TeenMentalHealth #Psychiatry #PublicHealth