About Mark Gorton
Mark Gorton, president of the MAHA Institute, delivered opening remarks at the organization's summit on the overmedicalization of mental health in the United States on May 26, 2026. He stated that over four million children ages 5 to 17 are on psychiatric medications and that SSRI use in children has more than doubled since 2005, while clinically diagnosed depression and suicide in that age group have increased by more than 60% during the same period. Gorton said that "the pharmaceutical industry has run the same playbook with psych meds as Purdue Pharma did with Oxycontin" and argued that the U.S. health care system's high spending and poor outcomes indicate that "the majority of treatments in the US are fraud and waste and on average these treatments harm people."
Gorton cited figures from medical journal editors Marcia Angell and Richard Horton questioning the reliability of clinical research, and noted that Medicare and Medicaid spent $335 billion on psychiatric drugs over the last decade. He characterized the system as a "self-reinforcing ecosystem" in which drug profits fund political donations and lobbying. The summit featured officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, and the NIH Brain Initiative, as well as researchers from several universities. Gorton also noted that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of HHS, was scheduled to join the event later that day.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Mark Gorton's recent appearances.
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✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Interviewer0:00
What's up? What's up, Mark? You waiting for everybody, Mark. Don't make it about you. It's not all about you. You know you're the most powerful person. So, what do you think about the Queensboro Bridge, man? What do you got on the Queensboro Bridge? People are dying on that bridge, man.
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Mark Gorton0:16
We definitely need to improve the regulation for e-bikes. So, we all got to do that, right?
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Interviewer0:20
Why are you opposed to Priscilla's Law? Why is that? Priscilla's Law, the regular e-bikes intro. What is it? The new intro by I think by Jim McPartland.
M
Mark Gorton0:30
I don't know the details of that.
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Interviewer0:32
Your boy, your minion, what's his name? Ben Furnas totally against Priscilla's Law. He totally against it.
M
Mark Gorton0:40
What does it say?
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Interviewer0:42
So, it puts license plates on e-bikes. That would allow the DOT to put license plates on e-bikes and they enforce the law.
M
Mark Gorton0:50
For a certain class of them. I don't know what the cutoff was.
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Interviewer0:54
E-bikes and mopeds. Let's say e-bikes even a small.
M
Mark Gorton0:57
Sorry. All right, here we go. I got to go this way.
I
Interviewer0:59
So, why do you allow them to do this? You take their money and they just go around and tell the elected officials, bro. That's what they do.
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Mark Gorton1:11
We want to see good regulation of e-bikes. I think we have a lot more in common than you think and it probably makes sense to just have a constructive conversation and all sit down. There's a ton of common ground. I understand that it's a very confrontational relationship, but we all want safe streets. Everybody in that room was talking about the same thing. So, it's just about the details of implementation. Everyone agrees that we need better enforcement. It's hard. The NYPD needs to learn to do things in a new way. We need app-based enforcement. It's one thing to have a law, it's another thing to actually have meaningful enforcement. With these bikes, they're fast, they're hard to catch. I don't think the cops are prepared to chase them down. So, I think app-based enforcement particularly for delivery guys and city bikes, both of those require apps. So, I think if you do that, you could actually get some real meaningful enforcement. And I think registration for a lot of these e-bikes that are really just mini motorcycles, some of them are super powerful. So, we definitely need good regulation for all that and it's not there. There's clearly a gap.
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Interviewer2:41
So, let me ask a question. What do you think about regulating the apps? Do you think there should be a commission in the city council to regulate the apps? Let's put Legio on top and Breva Design on top. Do you think there should be a commission to regulate the apps?
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Mark Gorton2:57
I don't know. There would probably need to be legislation of some sort.
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Interviewer3:02
Yeah, let's say you support regulation because you really run the city.
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Mark Gorton3:04
I think at that point there would be legislation mandating that the app companies include certain safety monitoring features for their riders.
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Interviewer3:15
And we think about this thing of the Queensboro Bridge situation because you're the guy that really runs the show.
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Mark Gorton3:23
We definitely need wider bike lanes there. As the speeds of these e-bikes go up and they're passing, you just need more space. I don't know what happened there but there was probably something on that bridge where people were passing and it's not wide enough. With the higher speed you need more separation between each vehicle, each rider, in order to have a safe thing. So, you need better enforcement, but you also need wider lanes so you don't have such conflict.
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Interviewer4:04
And what do you think about the little Reese's? What do you do with them? They said not one word. Leticia Guapa and Gustavo Chivas said not one word about this incident.
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Mark Gorton4:14
I don't really know.
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Interviewer4:16
You fund them, right? Do you fund them? Do you fund Luis Ortiz for this project?
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Mark Gorton4:21
That's not me.
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Interviewer4:22
So, that's all my questions, man.
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Interviewer4:27
Take care. Take care, bro. Take care, man. Take care, brother.
