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FDA's Expert Panel on Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) and Pregnancy: Who Were the Key Players
The panelists at the start of the FDA's Expert Panel on Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) and Pregnancy held on July 22, 2025.
The FDA had a panel discussion on the use of SSRI inhibitors in pregnancy the morning of July 22, 205 which was broadcasted via the FDA’s YouTube channel. Listed below were the selected members for this panel. It included 5 women and 8 men, 3 of which were from outside of the United States. Of the panelists 5 were psychiatrists, only 3 of them currently practicing, and only one was trained in perinatal medicine.
Tracy Beth Hoeg, MD, PhD—PM&R, Panel Moderator, senior advisor at FDA
Marty Makary, MD, PhD—FDA Commissioner, surgery, surgery oncology
Anick Berard, PhD—Perinatal epidemiologist from University of Montreal, Canada
Dorothy Fink, MD—Panel Moderator, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women's Health, specializing in endocrinology (IM/Peds)
Adam Urato, MD—Chief of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Metro West Medical Center, OBGYN
Jay Gingrich, MD, PhD—Psychiatrist and Columbia researcher who focuses on schizophrenia, depression and anxiety
David Healy, MD—psychiatrist/psychopharmacologist from Wales Department of Psychological Medicine
Jeffrey Lacasse, PhD, MSW—social worker from Florida State University
Roger McFillin, PsyD—psychologist Executive Director for Center for Integrated Behavioral Health
Josef Witt-Doerring, MD—psychiatrist and previous medical director of the FDA, co-founder of the Taper Clinic in Palm Desert, CA
Joanna Moncrieff, MD—London psychiatrist, professor
Michael Levin, PhD—Biologist from Tufts, Director of the Allen Discovery Center
Kay Roussos-Ross, MD—University of Florida Health, triple boarded on/gyn, psychiatrist, addiction medicine
Prior to the discussion, panelists were told to “speak from the heart.” Below you can click to be taken to the discussion. The panelists took turns presenting their perspectives on SSRIs. Some related to pregnancy, and others did not. For example, Dr. Moncrieff focused on whether antidepressants have efficacy for depression. Mr. Lacasse, a social worker, referenced an article he authored 20 years ago, and focused on the old chemical imbalance theory, which is widely known to be outdated. At least two of the panelists, Dr. Healy and Dr. Witt-Doerring, presented their known anti-psychiatry and anti-medication views. Dr. Healy, for reason not quite clear, made a reference to a man murdering his wife, before using the phrase “make doctors great again.”
There was only one perinatal psychiatrist on the panel, Dr. Roussos-Ross, whose work focuses on treating pregnant women with mental health and addiction issues. Notably, she was the only panelist who centered her discussion around the well-being of these women.
I will not further comment on this panel. My point is, when you don’t seek out the true experts on a topic, you will get misinformation, fear-mongering, and exposed to a hidden agenda. If only there were 10 perinatal psychiatrists discussing the risks and benefits of these medications, perhaps we could have had a nuanced and fruitful conversation about how to best treat and manage psychiatric disorders in pregnancy. Instead, we watched one expert in perinatal psychiatry and a dozen physicians and scientists who are perhaps experts in other areas, but not this, talk about a mishmash of topics that semi-related to SSRIs and pregnancy. I for one, hope that the FDA does better next time.
Rishab Gupta is a third year resident in psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. He is also enrolled in a PhD in Neural and Behavioral Sciences at Downstate. He graduated from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi in 2008. Being extremely interested in understanding human behavior since his medical school days, he joined Psychiatry residency at AIIMS in 2009. After finishing his training, he continued to work in the Department of Psychiatry at AIIMS as a trained psychiatrist. He is very passionate about academics and loves teaching and pursuing clinical research. He has presented his work at multiple national and international platforms and published numerous papers in different domains of psychiatry. Because of his unquenched thirst for learning he joined SUNY Downstate Medical Center as a Psychiatry resident in 2016. After graduating, he plans to pursue fellowship in Neuropsychiatry because of his active interest in disorders lying at the interface of Neurology and Psychiatry. He aims to be an academician and pursue research into the neurobiology of frontotemporal dementia, and psychotic disorder. When he is not in the clinic or learning psychiatry, he enjoys reading trivia, making jokes, doing social networking, trekking, listening to Punjabi music, and bingeing on various TV shows and movies.
Nwayieze Ndukwe
Dr.Nwayieze C. Ndukwe, MD, MPH, is a psychiatrist based in New York and New Jersey who enjoys exploring the interesection of mental health and popular culture. Dr.Ndukwe serves a associate professor at Mount Sinai Hospital systems in New York City and Mountainside Hospital in Montclair. Dr.Ndukwe was trained at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, and is board certified in Psychiatry by the ABPN. Dr.Ndukwe also holds a Master's in Degree in Public Health from Rutgers University.
Candace Good
Dr. Good specializes in college mental health as a staff psychiatrist at Penn State Counseling and Psychological Services. She is also the founder of Sig: Wellness, LLC, an integrative psychiatry practice in State College, PA. Her office includes a mind-body studio to encourage yoga, meditation, and other healing arts for stress management. The space serves as an incubator for other female wellness practitioners to grow their presence in the community. Dr. Good welcomes freelance writing and editing projects relevant to her specialty and blogs at https://howtoshrinkashrink.com.
Dr. Good is board-certified in both general and child & adolescent psychiatry. She maintains a clinical faculty appointment with the Penn State College of Medicine, where she also completed her medical degree and residency training. Over the past 15 years, her clinical work has included care of families in both rural and underserved communities as well as academic settings. Administrative roles have included medical director at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic Center for Children and Families, vice president of Sunpointe Health, and both unit director of behavioral health services and department chair of psychiatry at the Mount Nittany Medical Center. In 2017, she was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED) and was recognized as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP).
Dr. Good enjoys knitting and spending time with her family, especially her daughter and rescue hounds, Abbott and Flip.
Dr. Chepke attended NYU School of Medicine and completed psychiatry residency at Duke University, where he also completed undergraduate studies. He is Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He currently has a private practice in Huntersville, NC, serves as medical director for a level 3 residential adolescent treatment facility, and is an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry for the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Medical School at the Charlotte Campus.
Dr. Chepke has particular interests in treatment-resistant/severe persistent mental illness, as well as patients with both psychiatric and neurological disorders. He is a member of the CURESZ Foundation Clozapine Experts Panel and Tardive Dyskinesia Experts Panel, as well as a member of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. He also emphasizes engaging his patients in psychotherapy and strongly encouraging integrative approaches including physical health and wellness through exercise and dietary modification and supplementation. Dr. Chepke’s research interests are in neuropsychiatry and drug metabolism/interactions and is currently a principal investigator for several clinical trials.
Nishi Bhopal, MD is Board Certified in Psychiatry, Sleep Medicine, and Integrative Holistic Medicine. She grew up in Vancouver and completed her undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia. Her interest in medicine and love of travel took her halfway across the globe where she graduated with a degree in medicine from the National University of Ireland, University College Cork School of Medicine. She went on to complete her Psychiatric residency training at Henry Ford Hospital/Wayne State University and then a fellowship in Sleep Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. She now calls the Bay Area home and practices outpatient psychiatry in San Francisco. Dr. Bhopal is passionate about helping her patients find health and wellbeing through a combination of modern medical science and the wisdom of traditional eastern practices.
Dr. Nissa Perez completed her undergraduate work in psychobiology at UCLA and then obtained her medical degree from University of Southern California. She completed residency at UCLA San Fernando Valley Psychiatry Training Program and is a Board Certified Psychiatrist. She worked for one year as an attending in her residency program and has been in private practice for the last four and a half years, now in San Jose, CA. She incorporates psychopharmacology and psychotherapy into her practice and draws from multiple therapeutic modalities, primarily psychodynamic and mindfulness, but also incorporates cognitive behavioral therapy.
Dr. Perez is also an avid meditator and yogi. She meditates daily, regularly practices yoga and has attended multiple silent meditation retreats. She blogs at AMindfulMD.com.
Dr. Leslie Walker obtained her MD and MS (Neuroscience) degrees from the University of Michigan. She finished residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2000 and has been in solo practice since then, first in Baltimore and then in Cleveland. She has particular interests in treating women as well as physicians, and for five years served part-time as the psychiatrist for the Women's Trauma Treatment Program at the Cleveland VA Hospital. She enjoys teaching residents and medical students at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and she speaks nationally to physicians on psychiatric topics, work/family balance, resilience, and self-care. She is married to an academic neurologist and has one child in college and one in graduate school, making her officially an empty nester! Next goals: starting a blog and publishing a book.
Erik Messamore, MD, PhD is an expert in the fields of psychopharmacology, complex mood disorders, psychosis and schizophrenia.
He earned a PhD in neuropharmacology from Southern Illinois University and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He received his Medical Degree from the University of Illinois and completed a residency in Psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
His current research is focused on characterizing the blood flow response to niacin among people with schizophrenia. This research may ultimately improve our ability to detect schizophrenia at its very early stages and to categorize psychiatric illness along physiological lines.
He currently serves as an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) in Rootstown, Ohio. He is also the Medical Director of NEOMED’s Best Practices in Schizophrenia Treatment (BeST) Center.
He is a seasoned clinician and accomplished scientist, with a passion for improving the lives of those affected by mental illness.