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The Psychiatric Drugging of America’s Foster Children by Psychiatrist Peter Breggin

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

The Huffington Post – December 22, 2011

Remember that many of these children will be waking up on Christmas morning to count out their multiple mind-altering psychiatric drugs that they have been prescribed by psychiatrists and other prescribers hired by the states in which they reside and paid for by tax dollars. These kids don't need psychiatric drugs, they need human "angels" to rescue them from a system that is stacked against their well-being.

The most vulnerable among us are the littlest victims. Young children, torn from their birth families through various, often unspeakable tragedies. These children end up in state supervised foster care and too often are passed from hand to hand, house to house. There were approximately 662,000 children in foster care in the United States in 2010.

Now there is a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report confirming that foster children in five states — Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas — are receiving shocking amounts of psychiatric drugs. In the words of ABC News, they are “being prescribed psychiatric medications at doses higher than the maximum levels approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in these five states alone. And hundreds of foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time despite absolutely no evidence supporting the simultaneous use or safety of this number of psychiatric drugs taken together.” The ABC News report shows one 7-year-old holding a bag filled with 13 psychiatric medications that she had taken.

During the FDA drug-approval process, the maximum dose of a drug is determined by giving that drug by itself without any other psychoactive substances. When two or more psychiatric drugs are given together, each at its maximum dose, toxic levels of exposure can occur. In addition, some of these children are being given higher than the FDA-approved dose of individual drugs.

One young child interviewed by ABC News described the effect of the antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs he was taking: “They made me feel like I had a thousand bricks on my head.” Another child said, “Some of the medications were for ADHD but I’m not ADHD, I’m just naughty.” A teen in foster care on multiple psychiatric drugs told ABC News she felt like a “guinea pig.”

Foster children are provided government insurance in the form of Medicaid that includes “mental health” services such as psychiatric evaluations and prescription drug coverage. Individual states administer Medicaid and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for overseeing the state programs.

In the states surveyed by the GAO, children in Massachusetts fared worst. Thirty-nine percent of the foster care children aged 0-17 on Medicaid were prescribed at least one psychiatric drug. By comparison, 10 percent of non-foster care children in Massachusetts were prescribed at least one psychotropic medication under Medicaid. It’s serious enough when 10 percent of non-foster care children from our poorer communities are receiving psychiatric drugs; it’s even more tragic when 39 percent of our most poor and abandoned children are being inundated with these drugs.

Other states in the GAO study had total numbers of foster care children on Medicaid being prescribed at least one psychiatric drug: Oregon — 19.7 percent; Texas — 32.2 percent; Florida — 22 percent; and Michigan — 21 percent. The statistics reported are eye-opening, and it is worthwhile to see the full GAO report. In Texas, for instance, 9.1 percent of foster care children aged 0-5 years old are on at least one psychiatric drug, and 58.2 percent of foster care children aged 13-17 years old are on at least one psychiatric drug. Massachussetts has 53.4 percent of foster care children aged 13-17 on at least one psychiatric drug, and almost 5 percent of foster children aged 0-5 are on at least one psychiatric drug.

Is this widespread psychiatric drugging medically appropriate or indicated? Absolutely not. First of all, these are young children, even infants, who have already been through extremely traumatic experiences. All of them have been taken from their homes and most of them will not have had a stable replacement home. Beyond that, one can only imagine their horrendous living conditions prior to being removed from their families of origin. These children do not need psychoactive substances — they need the best human, caring services that our society can provide. The drugs may make them temporarily more docile, but by disrupting and suppressing normal brain function and development, they add new stressors to their lives and prevent them from adapting and growing as best as possible.

ABC News reports, “Of all the psychiatric medications, antipsychotics are, by far, the most prescribed, especially for foster children. Foster children are given anti-psychotics at a rate nine times higher than children not in foster care, according to a 2010 16-state analysis by Rutgers University of nearly 300,000 foster children.”

These antipsychotic drugs — including Abilify, Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa — can lead to obesity, elevated blood sugar and diabetes, pancreatitis, cardiovascular abnormalities and a disfiguring and sometimes disabling movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia. It’s been suggested they could shorten lifespan by up to 25 years in patients exposed to them for decades. Evidence is accumulating that they can also lead to shrinkage of the brain in those patients exposed to them for years.

Why are these highly-toxic drugs being given to so many children in foster care? The antipsychotic drugs can suppress the highest centers of the brain — the frontal lobes — leading to indifference and apathy, which makes the children more docile and easier to manage. The use of multiple psychiatry drugs (polydrug therapy) produces similar effects. In the extreme, these children become zombie-like.

The newer antidepressant drugs such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Cymbalta, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Effexor and Pristiq and have been shown to cause an increase in suicidal behavior in children. In addition, as the FDA-approved label and medication guides for these drugs confirm, they also can cause a general worsening of the individual’s condition, including depression, anxiety, hostility, aggression, impulsivity and mania. Many studies also suggest that a high percentage of children are driven into abnormal mental states by these drugs. When a child develops any one of these adverse reactions they are likely to have additional psychiatric drugs added to their drug cocktail rather than being carefully withdrawn from the offending substances.

As ABC News documented with one mother, parents or foster parents who object to the prescriptions of mind-altering psychiatric drugs for their young children are likely to be threatened with removal of the child from their care. In a separate case in Detroit, a child who was on Medicaid due to physical disability was taken off her mind-altering psychiatric drug by her mother when she displayed adverse effects.

The prescribing clinic called child welfare services and reported the mother. Welfare services removed the child from her mother’s care for a time. Fortunately, this child was later returned by court order to her mother and criminal charges against the mother were dismissed.

But word gets around. Complain about your child being placed on drugs and social services may intervene.

A mother in Millbrook, NY, was charged with medical neglect for not continuing her 4th grade son on a cocktail of psychiatric medications that was making him angry and listless. Off the drugs his energy returned and his mood improved, but public school officials kicked the boy out of school and reported the mother. The mother prevailed and was exonerated of “medical neglect” charges. Her son attended a private school and thrived. He is now a grown man and responsible citizen. His mother explained, “Kids don’t need drugs, they need individualized education and better family life. The priorities are all screwed up.”

In two of the ABC news foster care cases, the clinics that were authorized to deliver services to the children were also promoting themselves as being research facilities for “CNS Conditions” (central nervous system conditions, a misnomer for psychiatric conditions.) As research facilities those clinics have ties with pharmaceutical companies.

And what about the drug companies? Are they doing all they can to prevent the inappropriate use of their products? To the contrary, several of the largest drug companies have paid billions to settle claims they illegally marketed antipsychotics to children and other off-label populations, such as the elderly.

What is being done to these children should be viewed as chemical battery and child abuse. The misguided parents and foster parents are not the perpetrators. The psychopharmaceutical complex is the perpetrator, including the drug companies, the federal government and organized medicine and psychiatry.

The drugging of America’s children raise many issues including parental rights, children’s rights, child safety, off-label prescribing of the drugs and fraud and malpractice on the part of the researchers, psychiatrists and other prescribers. Most tragic is the silence! The stifled voices of victimized children and the self-serving silence of health professionals throughout the country who fail to take a public stand against the escalating drugging of our children.

Drugging traumatized foster children shoves them under society’s rug and is in no way therapeutic for the child. There are humane and effective approaches to helping our most vulnerable children. First, they need to be protected from predatory psychiatrists and other prescribers. Second, they need improved social services that could keep many of them in their homes or provide better assistance, training and supervision to improved foster care homes. When they inevitably become emotionally distressed and at times behaviorally disturbing, they do not need chemical readjustments of their brains — they need better attention from adults in the form of improved home-life or foster care, improved educational opportunities and psychosocial therapies aimed at helping them overcome and move beyond the trauma and stress they have endured and continue to endure as children and youth.

Sure, it’s easier to give them drugs. But has anybody noticed — it doesn’t help them in the long run. Exposure to psychiatric drugs in childhood is dangerous and over time can be damaging, disabling and even deadly.

No agencies and no associations — not NIMH, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the many other mental health associations — are willing to call a halt to the massive tidal wave of mind altering psychiatric drugs being thrown at America’s children. Several states, including Florida, Louisiana and New York have expelled “high prescribing” doctors from Medicaid but this is like nipping off the top of the iceberg. The primary problem remains: Placing children on psychiatric drugs instead of offering genuine help.

Dr. Robert Nelson, M.D., Ph.D. of the FDA Office of Pediatric Therapeutics, squirmed when challenged by Diane Sawyer in the ABC foster child series, but said the FDA had no plans to strengthen their warnings about psychiatric drugs and children.

The GAO, while courageously illuminating the great number of foster children on psychiatric drugs as well as the seriousness of children being exposed to multiple psychiatric drugs, falls far short of calling for the curtailment of the drugging of American children.

Twenty-five years ago, a tiny fraction of children were prescribed psychiatric medications, and that was largely confined to stimulants. In the early 1990s we were blowing the whistle on the increasing attention psychiatry was paying to children. I wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in 1989 and spoke frequently through the media about how children being blamed and diagnosed for problems in families, schools and in society. From 1990 to 1995 the increased prescribing of psychotropic drugs for preschoolers had begun.

What is to be done?

It is time for state attorney generals to launch full-scale investigations into the practices of these Medicaid psychiatrists. When appropriate, they should be charged with battery and with fraud, and sued for malpractice. But the psychiatrists are largely responding to the campaigns conducted by the psychopharmaceutical complex.The entire system, from the drug companies and insurance companies to the medical and psychiatric associations, and also the researchers and universities, need to be investigated for participating in this widespread medical abuse of children.

This Christmas, as many of us gather around a Christmas tree watching the children in our families wake up with shining eyes and happy laughter… remember. Remember that there were approximately 662,000 children in foster care in the United States in 2010.

Remember that many of these children will be waking up on Christmas morning to count out their multiple mind-altering psychiatric drugs that they have been prescribed by psychiatrists and other prescribers hired by the states in which they reside and paid for by tax dollars. These kids don’t need psychiatric drugs, they need human “angels” to rescue them from a system that is stacked against their well-being.

Only an outraged citizenry will change this. Write your Congressional representatives and senators. Write your state representatives and senators. Write your state attorney general’s office requesting a full investigation in your state of the crisis with foster children and psychiatric drugs. If you are a parent or a foster parent being pressured to keep your child on psychiatric drugs, call your local paper, referencing the ABC News investigation. If you are a reporter, plan a local series on this issue. If you are a teacher, a social worker or professional in the Medicaid system, consider becoming a whistleblower against the chemical assault of these children. If you are a medical professional learn how to help children safely taper off their psychiatric drugs while assisting their families in obtaining more useful services. Always remember that withdrawal from psychiatric drugs can be hazardous and needs to be done carefully with experienced clinical supervision.

It’s the Christmas season. Let’s not forget the kids who are so drugged their eyes cannot sparkle anymore. Become one of their real-life angels.

Peter R. Breggin, M.D. is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and former full-time consultant with NIMH who is in private practice in Ithaca, New York. Dr. Breggin is the author of more than twenty books including the bestseller Talking Back to Prozac and the medical book Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Second Edition. His most recent book is Medication Madness, the Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime. He is also the author of dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles, many in the field of psychopharmacology. On April 13-15, 2012 in Syracuse, New York, the annual conference of Dr. Breggin’s 501c3 nonprofit international organization, The Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, will present a panel of lawyers, experts, survivors and families concerning antidepressant-induced violence and crime. Conference information is available on www.EmpathicTherapy.org.

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Huffington Post – “Foster Teen: I Was Put In A Psych Ward. I Wasn’t Crazy”

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

The Huffington Post
By Anthony Turner
December 3, 2011

This is a teen-written article from Represent Magazine, a platform for and by young people in foster care.

It all started when I said something stupid in school. A girl was ignoring me, and I got mad and said, “F-ck this sh-t. I’m gonna do some Virginia Tech sh-t.” I only said it so the girl would pay attention to me. But I shocked all my classmates and teachers, and the school said I’d made a “terrorist threat.”

I was in the 9th grade, and I had recently moved out of an abusive situation with my mom and into a foster home I knew nothing about. I needed someone to listen so I could get my feelings out. But there was no one I could really trust.

My caseworker came to my foster mom’s house and told me that he would take me to KFC and then to a “nice place to get help.” I thought, “OK, that sounds cool. I get my favorite food and I go to a center to feel better.”

The next stop we made was a psychiatric hospital for kids. We went through door after door, and it dawned on me that every door had a lock. Once the door shut you couldn’t open it. The doors locked you in. They intended to keep me here. That realization gave me a panic attack. I started running and the security tackled me. I was forcibly dragged in.

What Was I Signing?

When I got inside, the kids peeked out of their rooms to see who was coming. I was so scared I thought I would pee on myself. I had never been to a place like this. When I entered a dayroom, a place where the kids hang out, they slowly introduced themselves. I shook my head in fright. I wasn’t like these kids. Some were twitching and others drooled. I kept to myself and didn’t speak a word to anyone.

I felt forced into signing a bunch of papers. I didn’t realize I was signing consent to take medication.

The first things they prescribed were Depakote and Risperdal. I didn’t get a say in what I wanted, and that made me feel powerless.

At the hospital, staff joked about it in a perverse way. “Hey kids, come and get your happy pills!” “Come right up for your Skittles, it makes the world a better place!” I was disgusted that the staff were making light of my situation. I wondered how they’d feel if they were forced to take pills in a lockdown facility.

The meds made me feel bad. Sometimes I over-ate, ate too little, or had trouble sleeping. I hated the fake smile the nurses gave me after I took my medication.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone, especially my therapist, because I believed that my depressing stories about my mom’s abuse might make the doctors prescribe more medication.

I was afraid if I kept taking medication I would be just like every kid in the hospital. I wanted to be the kid who stood out, the kid who didn’t take medication. There were kids already looking up to me but I wanted them to think, “Wow, Anthony doesn’t take medication. I want to follow his lead.”

I tried hiding the pills in my hand. I learned how to put pills deep in my throat and spit them out later. It worked for a while but then one pill got stuck there. The staff helped get it out. After that they checked me carefully.

Another way I avoided pills was simply putting them under my tongue. I would hide them in a soap bar box until my roommate saw it and told the nurse. Then I was forced to take liquid medication, which was disgusting.

A Target

The Depakote was supposed to make me feel “calmer” and “happy.” Instead I gained over 30 pounds, and that brought my self-esteem down. I felt fat and I wasn’t comfortable with myself. Some of the kids and even staff called me names like fat ass or b-tch tits. I went off on one staff once because he said, “I know the perfect birthday present for you—a training bra!”

I really wanted to do well, and I tried to behave and present myself in a mature manner. But it didn’t seem to make a difference. And the uncontrollable and unpredictable behavior around me started to affect me.

The one and only time I truly flipped out, though, was when the whole unit tried to jump me. “Yo, let’s f-ck up this p-ssy n-gga Anthony,” said one kid. Suddenly everyone turned to me grinning sinisterly, like they’d just found their new target.

“Nah, come on guys, let’s play some board games or something,” I suggested.

“You ain’t gonna get out this, b-tch,” said a fat kid with squinty eyes. “You think you Mr. Goody Two Shoes. We gonna straighten you out.”

I ended up getting chased down by 12 guys. One person caught me and then they stomped me out. I thought I would beg for them to leave me alone, but suddenly I felt myself becoming so enraged that I no longer felt the pain. I got up and screamed, “LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”

I was surprised at my sudden outburst, but most of the guys just laughed. Then everything turned red and my surroundings became a blur. I didn’t gain full consciousness until I was near the dayroom area. I noticed some of the guys holding their lip or arm. “Did I do this?” was the only thought that came to mind.

I was shocked that I’d stood up to them, much less beaten them up. A weird feeling came over me then. I wondered for the first time in the hospital if I was losing my sanity and just becoming one of maybe thousands of nut jobs who end up staying in hospitals.

Suppressing My Feelings

But most of the time I was quick to disengage and try to find ways to occupy myself when I saw these kinds of incidents starting. I tried reading, writing, talking with a staff I could trust, or daydreaming. These were ways to block out any negativity that surrounded me. Although these strategies were very helpful, I was still suppressing my feelings because there were overwhelming situations I wasn’t familiar with and didn’t know how to deal with emotionally.

While I was in the hospital, I saw two people commit suicide, including my roommate. They said I was “further traumatized” by that and put me in a state hospital, which was even more restrictive.

Looking at it now, I can see that the suicides did really impact me. However, I felt outpatient therapy (therapy where you see your therapist but you’re not confined to a psychiatric unit) could’ve been more effective. I didn’t see how living in the state hospital was going to help. I just wanted to be back in the community where I’d be able to interact more freely, go out, and feel more like a normal kid.

I was glad to leave the first hospital, but this was no better. I wanted to get off medication completely. Some doctors finally decided I was stable enough to behave without meds. They started to take me off a little at a time. I was happy to be off the medication, but if I messed up or acted out one bit, like by cursing, I was back on it.

For example, once a staff ticked me off by yelling at me for not doing my laundry. I cursed at him because he kept pressuring me. The doctors and staff said the fact that I cursed meant I was too unstable to stay off medication. But wouldn’t anyone curse if they felt pressured or nervous that a staff he hardly knew started yelling at him?

I had seen some staff do terrible, abusive things to the kids, like getting them to fight each other in exchange for Chinese food (a special treat). Of course I was on edge around some of the staff. The doctors didn’t know that, though.

Can’t We Talk About This?

I felt trapped. Some doctors said, “Well, Anthony, it’s possible to get off medication, but will it benefit you in the long run?” What were they trying to say? That I couldn’t function properly without the use of a drug?

I didn’t question it further because the mental health system had trained my brain to think that meds were my solution to everything. If I felt angry the doctor would say, “Maybe it’s time for Abilify, a drug that stabilizes your mood swings.” If I felt anxious the doctor would try to prescribe Zoloft, a pill that helps with some types of anxiety. I thought, “Have you guys ever heard of talking your feelings out? NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE SOLVED WITH THE USE OF A DRUG!”

I was receiving therapy at the time, and I felt it helped more than the meds. I had a really good therapist, and it was such a physical release to be able to express my feelings. I’m sure the meds did improve my moods somewhat; I was less likely to curse and talk back. But what helped the most was having a direct connection with a trusted adult like I got in therapy.

I sat down one day and wrote how I felt the pills were helping me—pros—and how they weren’t—the cons. I wanted time to reflect on where I was going in life, to feel some control. The cons on my list—the physical side effects, and the depressing feeling I got from taking meds—outnumbered the pros. I wasn’t going to tell the doctor that everything I was taking was all right with me. It wasn’t and I had to put a stop to it.

I was tired of taking meds and then being taken off just to get back on again. No one even gave me a real explanation. Their excuse was usually, “We’re putting you back on because we feel you could be in a more stable condition.” Being on and off meds made me really jumpy. My eyes would twitch sometimes.

I also felt mentally tired because I’d been on drugs for over a year and I wasn’t getting better. I was constantly sleeping and I couldn’t focus. Emotionally, I was tired of the need to even be on meds in the first place.

I believed that in order for me to be better I had to be exposed to the community because then I could feel how a teenage life is supposed to be. To me this meant a cell phone so I could communicate with friends, my own room, decent curfews, a real home, and to be around my family. It wasn’t pills I needed; it was the chance to feel like a normal teenager after years of abuse and being institutionalized.

Love Is the Best Medicine

After eight months at the second hospital, I was sent to a group home at a Residential Treatment Facility (RTF), where I continued to take medication. I began to wonder when I would ever get back in the community. I had just started going on visits with my aunt and I had decided that I would like to go live there. I just wanted to stay somewhere permanently and feel cared for. Thinking about all this moving made me as depressed as when I first came into the hospital.

Finally, they let me go live at my aunt’s house. I think the reason why the RTF agreed to it was because I kept advocating for myself. I felt excited and at peace. I felt that I had achieved the impossible and that I deserved to be with my aunt and my family who would love me for me, instead of living with the institution’s idea of “support.” I had worked two and a half years to get to this point. I would not let it go to waste.

Alone in my room at my aunt’s house, I thought quietly. I looked to the left. There was no nurse ready to give me a cup full of meds. I looked to my right. There was no doctor trying to switch my meds or giving me higher doses. It dawned on me then. There were obviously rules and expectations, but ultimately I could make my own decisions now. I didn’t have to continue the medication. So I made an appointment with the doctor and said, “I no longer feel like I need medication.”

The doctor seemed a little concerned that I was in a rush. She said, “Anthony, you’re a very bright kid, but are you sure that you want to get off? I want you to perform at your highest and do well.” I told her I was sure of my choice and that I wouldn’t regret it. And I don’t.

The Community Transformed Me

Now that I don’t take medication I feel a lot happier, more powerful, and in control. Yeah, I had to get adjusted to living back in Brooklyn, but I adapted quickly. It felt good to see my neighborhood friends and the employees I always talked to at the Burger King across the street. I never ever felt this happy when I was on medication. I always felt drugged or out of it. I’m not always happy, but when I do feel bad I talk my feelings out with people I trust, and I write. Writing allows me to get overwhelming or negative things off my mind onto paper.

Being in the community is what I’ve always wanted. Now I have a sense of freedom. I go to regular school, I have easy access to friends, and I socialize on my time. I’m not on someone else’s schedule and I don’t have to be cooped up inside all day feeling anxious. The community has transformed me.

Read the rest of the article here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/foster-teens-i-needed-emo_n_1126659.html?page=1

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12-Year-Old Boy Testifies Before Congress On Being Forcibly Drugged in Foster Care

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

By Daily Mail Reporter
December 2, 2011

A 12-year-old boy has bravely told how he was medicated into a near-stupor as he was passed between foster care homes.

The seventh grader, known only as Ke’onte, told Congress that being given the mind-altering drugs was ‘the worst thing anyone could do to foster kids’.

He revealed that he could barely eat while on the medication and was so exhausted ‘it felt like I would collapse wherever I was in the house’.

Ke'onte, 12, tells Congress that he was wrongly diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD and given four different medications that left him in a 'stupor'

‘I think putting me on all these stupid meds was the stupidest thing I’ve ever experienced in foster care,’ he said.

Ke’onte’s plight came to light as a Government Accountability Office report was released that found the federal government had not done enough to oversee the treatment of foster children with powerful drugs.

The study found cared-for children were up to 13 times more likely to be prescribed anti-psychotics and anti-depressants than other children.

Ke’onte, who was adopted in 2009, said he had tantrums as a foster child and was inaccurately diagnosed as bipolar and having ADHD.

‘I’ve been in the mental hospital three times during foster care, and every time I had to get on more meds or new meds to add to the ones I was already taking,’ he said.

Medicated: The Government study found children in foster care were 13 times more likely to be on anti-pyschotics and anti-depressants than other children

He was on four different types of medication during his four years in six foster care and the drugs made him feel irritable, gave him stomach aches and affected his appetite, reports ABC.

‘I remember having a bowl of spaghetti and had three bites and then I was done,’ he said.

He has since been taken off the medication and given therapy, and is thriving.

He plays clarinet in the school band, competes in cross-country and has had roles in the school play.

He said: ‘In therapy, you talk about the deepest thing and it hurts, but you can deal with it better the next time.

‘I’m not only more focused in school… I’m not going to the office anymore for bad behavior and I’m happy.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069119/Keonte-12-tells-Congress-drugged-4-years-foster-care.html

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ABC News: Doctors Put Foster Children at Risk With Mind-Altering Drugs

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

December 1, 2011
by BRINDA ADHIKARI, JOAN MARTELLI and SARAH KOCH
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Across America, doctors are putting foster children on powerful, mind-altering drugs at rates up to 13 times that of children in the general population. What’s more, doctors are prescribing foster children drugs at doses beyond what the Food and Drug Administration has approved, sometimes in potentially dangerous combinations, according to a new report by the federal Government Accountability Office.

“It’s just almost beyond comprehension,” said Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., who asked for the GAO investigation. “We want the doctors and nurses that are prescribing these medicines to look at their behavior and think and ask this question. Are we doing something wrong here?”

In Florida, regulator Gabriel Myers, killed himself in 2009 after being prescribed a powerful mix of psychotropic medication.

In Florida, regulators have been grappling with that question since a 7-year-old boy, Gabriel Myers, killed himself in 2009 after being prescribed a powerful mix of psychotropic medication.

His psychiatrist, Dr. Sohail Punjwani, had, at different times, prescribed two drugs that carry black box labels — warning of the need to carefully monitor patients because of the increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in children, which call for careful monitoring. However, even though Gabriel visited Punjwani’s office seven times, his foster father said Gabriel usually only spent about five minutes talking to the doctor.

Gabriel’s death was ruled an accident, but investigators pointed to the possibility that the medication may have contributed to his death. The tragedy triggered a storm of outrage across the state.

“I don’t accept that the only way to reach a child who is 7 years old is through psychotropic drugs,” said Florida Sen. Ronda Storm, during hearings over Gabriel’s death. “I do not accept that.”

The boy’s doctor settled a lawsuit in 2010 accusing him of prescribing a toxic cocktail of psychotropic drugs to a 16-year-old patient, who suffered a sudden heart attack and died. Punjwani settled that case but admitted no wrongdoing.

Additionally, Punjwani was arrested for driving under the influence and cocaine possession. He pleaded not guilty to those charges but went through a court-ordered rehabilitation program.

When ABC News caught up with Dr. Punjwani, he told us, “Sad stories happen but that does not mean that everything else the doctor is responsible for it because we are in the business of taking care of these children,” he said.

Antipsychotic medication, which can cause a litany of health problems such as severe weight gain, an increased risk of diabetes and irreversible movement disorders, is among the top-selling drugs in America.

Four drug makers have paid a total of more than $2 billion to settle claims they illegally marketed antipsychotics to children. All deny wrongdoing.

“How do antipsychotics, drugs supposedly for people who have lost touch with reality, how do they develop such a wide market?” said neuropsychiatrist Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, who won millions of dollars as a key whistleblower against drug companies.

There have been very limited long-term studies on antipsychotics in children. And for drugs already on the market, the duration of the studies that were used to get FDA approval for children have been as short as three to six weeks.

ABC News interviewed a social worker now working in a state foster care system, who asked not to be identified.

“Every child that I saw was basically on some type of psychotropic medication,” the social worker told ABC News. “It’s much easier to medicate a child than it is to physically restrain them, than it is to pay $200 an hour to a therapist to talk through their problems with them.”

Read the reset of the article here

Watch the year-long investigation tonight on “World News with Diane Sawyer” at 6:30 p.m. ET and then see more on “20/20,” Friday at 10 p.m. ET.

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ABC World News: Study Shows U.S. Government Fails to Oversee Treatment of Foster Children With Mind-Altering Drugs

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

By DR. MARK ABDELMALEK, BRINDA ADHIKARI, SARAH KOCH, JOSEPH DIAZ and CLAIRE WEINRAUB

Watch the year-long investigation tonight on “World News with Diane Sawyer” at 6:30 p.m. ET

Children in foster care are more likely to take multiple antipsychotic medications for longer periods of time than any other group of children. (Fuse/Getty Images)

“I was almost despondent to believe that the kids under the age of one, babies under the age of one were receiving this kind of medication.” —US Senator Thomas Carper.

The federal government has not done enough to oversee the treatment of America’s foster children with powerful mind-altering drugs, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to be released Thursday.

ABC News was given exclusive access to the GAO report, which capped off a nationwide yearlong investigation by ABC News on the overuse of the most powerful mind-altering drugs on many of the country’s nearly 425,000 foster children.

The GAO’s report, based on a two-year-long investigation, looked at five states — Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas. Thousands of foster children were being prescribed psychiatric medications at doses higher than the maximum levels approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in these five states alone. And hundreds of foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time despite absolutely no evidence supporting the simultaneous use or safety of this number of psychiatric drugs taken together.

GAO Key Findings:

Overall, the GAO looked at nearly 100,000 foster children in the five states and found that nearly one-third of foster children were prescribed at least one psychiatric drug.

The GAO found foster children were prescribed psychotropic drugs at rates up to nearly five times higher than non-foster children, with foster children in Texas being the most likely to receive the medications compared to foster children in the other four states.

Watch the year-long investigation tonight on “World News with Diane Sawyer” at 6:30 p.m. ET

Although the actual percentages of children who received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time were low in the five states included in the GAO report, the chances of a foster child compared to a non-foster child being given five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time were alarming.

In Texas, foster children were 53 times more likely to be prescribed five or more psychiatric medications at the same time than non-foster children. In Massachusetts, they were 19 times more likely. In Michigan, the number was 15 times. It was 13 times in Oregon. And in Florida, foster children were nearly four times as likely to be given five or more psychotropic medications at the same time compared to non-foster children.

Initially part of GAO’s investigation, Maryland was later excluded from GAO’s analysis “due to the unreliability of their foster care data” according to the report, a problem ABC News learned many states face.

Foster children were also more than nine times more likely than non-foster children to be prescribed drugs for which there was no FDA-recommended dose for their age.

For the most vulnerable foster children, those less than 1 year old, foster children were nearly twice as likely to be prescribed a psychiatric drug compared to non-foster children.

When Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., lead requestor of the GAO report, first learned of the report’s findings, he said, “I was almost despondent to believe that the kids under the age of one, babies under the age of one were receiving this kind of medication.”

ABC News has reviewed dozens of medical studies published in recent years that echo GAO’s findings — research showing foster children receive psychiatric medications up to 13 times more often than kids in the general population.

In some parts of the country, as many as half of foster kids are on one or more psychiatric medications. This, compared to just 4 percent of kids in the general population.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/study-shows-foster-children-high-rates-prescription-psychiatric/story?id=15058380#.Tta8ymrjWSo

 

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Georgia Advocate Speaks Out Against Psychiatric Medication Use in Nation’s Foster Care System

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
By James Swift
October 28, 2011

Giovan Bazan, 21, speaks at the 11th annual CHRIS KIDS fundraiser in September, 2011. Atlanta, Ga.

Alongside photographs of rocker Jon Bon Jovi and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, Giovan Bazan looks downright blithe. Although they tower over him, the tuxedo-clad Bazan wearing a slight smirk, his gelled hair and pierced ears sharply contrasting his suit-and-tie apparel.

With his cheery disposition, you wouldn’t suspect Bazan had a troubled childhood. In reality, the 21-year-old has spent a majority of his life in foster homes, and for most of his childhood, he was prescribed anti-depressants and behavioral disorder drugs.

“I went into foster care at 11 months old,” the Los Angeles native said. “When I was six, they put me on medication.”

By many accounts Bazan has come a long way since his days in foster care. In September he spoke at Atlanta-based CHRIS KIDS‘ 11th annual fundraiser alongside towering protraits of celebrities. He has adressed state legislature multiple times about issues pressing foster youth in the state. He has managed to turn his troubled childhood into a stepping stone, not a crux.

Kathy Colbenson, CEO of CHRIS KIDS and co-organizer of the fundraiser, said Bazan’s combination of determination, will and outlook has set a tremendous example for children around the nation facing similar circumstances.

“I think what he’s doing is awesome,” she said.

Today Bazan holds a number of titles. He is the JUSTGeorgia project coordinator for EmpowerMEnt, an initiative of Multi-Agency Alliance for Children, Inc. that is designed to help at-risk youth within the state. He also serves as a Youth Support Specialist Georgia Department of Family and Children Services, a liaison for the White House Council for Community Solutions, and as owner and CEO of the National Executive Protection Agency.

“It’s a travesty how frequently kids in the foster care system are medicated, and I feel like my foster mom wanted to keep me medicated,” Bazan said. “When they put me on medication, when they started to sedate me, it abused my emotions and controlled my mind to the point where I went from being a child to being nothing short of a vegetable.”

Click image to watch video with Giovan Bazan

Bazan started receiving psychotropic medication following the death of one of his foster mothers, he said.

“Mommy Karen was very caring, she was very supportive, very loving,” he said, recalling her life. “If I scratched a knee, she would be there to hold me.”

Bazan remembered taking cross-country road trips from California to South Carolina. But he didn’t know the “vacations” were actually for his foster mother to receive chemotherapy treatments. She died of cancer when he was just four-years-old, he said.

After her death, Bazan was taken in by a foster mother that he claimed was vindictive and hostile toward him.

“She was always angry about something that I did,” Bazan said. “I always felt that, for some reason, she always resented me.”

Bazan began receiving behavioral treatment drugs shortly after, he said.

“It started with Ritalin,” Bazan said. Soon after he was prescribed, what he called, a “cocktail of medication” by psychiatrists – primarily anti-depressant drugs.

“That little childhood personality that kids have was void,” Bazan said about his experiences in elementary school. “I would come to class and just put my head down and not talk to my classmates. I couldn’t explain it, I didn’t know what was going on.”

Originally he was medicated for displaying symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder, he said.

“When I was medicated, it was to eradicate a specific problem, which was [being] overactive and hyper,” Bazan said. “In other words, being a child. They medicated me to prevent me from being a child.”

Bazan said it was too much, considering himself overmedicated as a child.

“As time progressed, the dosage of the medication would have to increase because my body would adjust to the medication,” he said. “This medication that they would give me had so many side effects that they would have to counter those side effects with more medication.”

As a child, Bazan said, he was given experimental dosages of psychotropic medication. In elementary school, he said, he received treatment doses that were equivalent to those given to teenagers and young adults.

“Ultimately, that’s what they were doing … they were testing on me,” he said. “I was having seizures, I would have horrendous nosebleeds. It was more detrimental than it was helpful.”

In 2010, the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute released a report showing that overmedication within the foster care system was indeed a problem. About 52 percent of kids in the system had been prescribed psychotropic medication. Bazan found the findings both alarming and horrifying.

“One of the biggest changes that we’re looking to in the future deals with regulating psychotropic medication being administered to foster care children,” he said. “They’re being medicated because they’re coming from abusive homes, when what really happens is the system tends to look at a case and say ‘oh, well they’re having trouble paying attention.’ Well, yeah, they’re having trouble paying attention in school because they’re getting beat up at home and they’re being abused at home. Whatever stress a normal kid has, theirs is exponentially multiplied.”

In 2011, Georgia legislators introduced House Bill 23 (HB 23), a bill aimed at regulating and monitoring psychotropic drug prescriptions within the foster care system. But the bill, also known as the ”Foster Children’s Psychotropic Medication Monitoring Act,” never made it into law.

Bazan said anyone that doesn’t see the dangers of overprescribing psychiatric drugs, to kids or to anyone, should try taking them for themselves.

“Take it for a couple of years,” he said. “That’s what happens to the foster kids. They’re not given medication for a couple of months, and bam, the problem’s solved. Psychotropic medication isn’t designed to be taken like antibiotics, where you can take them for a certain amount of time and the problem is eliminated. You have to take a higher dosage, and you have to take a higher dosage and when it no longer affects you, you have to switch to a more powerful medication.”

According to Bazan, behavioral drugs and other forms of psychiatric medicine pose an imminent threat to kids in Georgia foster care and throughout the nation.

“If you can find valid proof that [discredits] what evidence has shown over and over again that it is harmful to youth, then by all means, let me know,” he said. “But you won’t find that evidence outside of pharmaceutical companies, who push that kind of information out there.”

Read article here:  http://jjie.org/georgia-advocate-speaks-out-against-psychiatric-medication-use-nations-foster-care-system/52283

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The mass overmedication of foster children with psychiatric drugs

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Prison Planet – July 25, 2011

by Sally Oaken – Natural News

For a long list of reasons, the day-to-day life of a child in foster care can be challenging. Foster parents are often stretched thin and overburdened, foster children often wrestle with emotional issues that can go misdiagnosed, unrecognized or misunderstood, and qualified medical care for this vulnerable population is constantly in short supply.

These challenges are now being compounded by an additional concern: the over-administration of psychotropic drugs. Psychotropic medications are intended to combat or ease the symptoms of behavioral and mental health problems, but among children in foster care, these drugs are being prescribed at excessive levels and often for inappropriate reasons.

According to a recent study conducted by researchers at the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute, about 4 percent of the general youth population has received prescriptions for these drugs during the past decade. By comparison, the numbers for children in foster care fall between 13 and 52 percent. This study corroborates the findings of similar studies conducted in Texas and Georgia during the same time period.

There are several debatable factors that can explain the disparity in prescription rates between children in foster care and the general youth population. While foster children may appear to suffer from a higher rate of behavioral and mental health concerns, many of these behavioral issues arise as a natural response to trauma and domestic stress, and are being improperly diagnosed as mental health disorders.

Due to the time and financial constraints placed on care-givers and a lack of access to qualified medical professionals, it seems likely that many of these inappropriate prescriptions are written for the sake of convenience.

The reasons behind the trend may be simple, but the consequences of inappropriate prescription drug use can be tragic. Researchers cite many cases of children in the foster care system who are grossly overmedicated, irresponsibly medicated, or feel imprisoned rather than cared for while being regularly dosed with an indiscriminate cocktail of psychotropic drugs. Read the rest of the article here: http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-mass-overmedication-of-foster-children-with-psychiatric-drugs.html

CLICK IMAGE TO WATCH:  The Psychiatric Drugging of Foster Kids

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52% of foster kids are prescribed psych drugs—One of them is fighting back

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

By CCHR Int
June 23, 2011

At just 6 years of age, still grieving over the death of the only mother he’d ever known, his foster mother, Giovan Bazan received the first of many psychiatric “diagnoses” and drugs that would plague him for the next twelve years of his life. Moved from foster home to  foster home, orphanages and other modes of state care, Giovan was stigmatized with a plethora of psychiatric diagnoses and drugs until the age of 18, when he could finally make his own medical decisions and quit. Now a child advocate working part time at the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) in Georgia, Giovan is on a mission: To get a full-time job with DFCS and help enact laws to combat the wholesale labeling and drugging of foster children. In the video below, Giovan tells his story and why he decided to fight back against the abuse of kids in foster care.

(Story continues below)

Foster kids—often removed from family homes because of abuse—are further abused when they are prescribed psychotropic drugs under state care. Many of these children are on cocktails of prescribed drugs, including antipsychotics and antidepressants with documented side effects of diabetes, stroke, mania, psychosis, tumors, coma, suicide and death.

Yet, the rates with which these children are being given drugs has been increasing. The antipsychotic use rate among foster kids increased by 5.6% between 2004 and 2007 (from 11.7 percent to 12.4 percent). Another study in Pediatrics, revealed that youth in foster care covered by Medicaid insurance receive psychotropic medication at a rate more than 3 times that of Medicaid-insured youth who qualify by low family income.

Only half of state child welfare systems have a policy to review usage of these drugs, and those are weak policies at that.

The psychiatric drugging of foster kids has caused so much concern nationally that in July 2010, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) started an investigation into the use of these drugs in foster care, as they are widely used in dangerous combinations, and for so-called “off-label” uses to treat symptoms for which they have not been medically approved. The GAO is looking into the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud arising from this and is collecting and analyzing data from Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

For more information on the psychiatric drugging of children, watch these videos:

Psychiatry—Labeling Kids with Bogus ‘Mental Disorders’


Drugging Our Children—Side Effects

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Dosed in juvie jail: Troubled doctors hired to treat kids in state custody

Monday, June 20th, 2011

By Michael LaForgia

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

By the time Florida started paying Dr. Gold Smith Dorval to counsel and medicate jailed children, the Pembroke Pines psychiatrist already had experience with kids in state custody.

He had used them, authorities said, to bilk the government out of money for the poor.

When Dorval pleaded no contest to a felony grand theft charge, it should have barred him, by law, from working for Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice.

It didn’t.

And, like Dorval, other doctors have emerged from past troubles and gotten jobs at DJJ – with authority to prescribe drugs to kids in state jails, a Palm Beach Post investigation has found.

Some psychiatrists took DJJ jobs after they were cited for breaking the law, making grave medical missteps or violating state rules. Others were hired after they were accused of overmedicating patients, sometimes fatally.

All were empowered to prescribe drugs to jailed kids as powerful antipsychotic pills flowed freely into Florida’s homes for wayward children.

“It’s appalling. A psychiatrist is a psychiatrist. They’re licensed, they’ve been to medical school, and there is a certain trust placed in that person’s judgment when they tell you that this child needs to be medicated,” said John Walsh, an attorney with the Palm Beach County Legal Aid Society who has represented children in juvenile court. “This just illustrates that we always have to be on guard with children.”

In two years, Florida bought hundreds of thousands of tablets of Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdal and other antipsychotic drugs for children housed in state-run jails and programs. The meds were administered in a juvenile justice system that doesn’t track prescriptions and has no way of telling whether doctors are prescribing to make kids easier to control.

In some jails and homes, pills were prescribed by psychiatrists who took huge speaker fees from companies that make antipsychotic drugs, The Post found. In others, the task fell to doctors with troubled pasts.

In response to the newspaper’s first reports, published last month, DJJ Secretary Wansley Walters launched an investigation into the department’s use of antipsychotic drugs. DJJ officials declined to discuss The Post’s latest findings, citing the probe.

Spokesman C.J. Drake acknowledged, though, that the department has struggled to find psychiatrists willing to work in jails and programs. He also said DJJ sometimes has relied on companies that employ a stable of doctors, rather than signing a contract with a single physician.

As a result, Dorval went to work in a Broward County jail for children – even though he would have failed a state-mandated background check required by the contract.

Doctor’s bogus billings

In the late 1990s, Dorval claimed he was providing juvenile delinquents and other vulnerable children with needed therapy. Instead, state investigators said, he used bogus counselors to bill Medicaid for more than $350,000 in fraudulent claims.

He charged the government for offering more than 24 hours’ worth of children’s therapy in a single day, investigators said, and structured the scheme around kids who were homeless or in DJJ custody or foster care.

He tended to bill “for those children that the system ‘lost,’ ” according to an affidavit for his arrest.

Originally charged with four felonies in Broward, Dorval pleaded no contest to one count of grand theft in 2004.

Later, to keep his medical license, he agreed to pay $10,000 and was suspended, reprimanded and put on four years’ probation.

Although a judge withheld a formal finding of guilt, the plea disqualified Dorval from seeing patients in a juvenile jail. Even so, his employer, Miami-based Compass Health Systems, sent him to work at the Broward Juvenile Detention Center between August and December 2007.

No one screened his background beforehand.

In written responses to questions, Dorval said he was doing as he was told when Compass sent him to work in the Broward juvenile jail.

“At that period you cited, the psychiatrist that was seeing patients at the DJJ was out. Therefore I was designated by the management office to go and cover for that psychiatrist, until they switched me again to another place. I was not aware of any wrongdoing,” wrote Dorval, who stressed that he never signed a contract with DJJ. “I am only an employee. Wherever they send me to work I have to go.”

As for the criminal charges, he offered this explanation: “This case was a simple matter that became complicated, because my first lawyer messed me up.” After wrangling over the facts, “they decided to offer me a plea that would allow me to get a chance to fight for my license to practice medicine,” he wrote. “It was a real nightmare that generated in me a post-traumatic syndrome that I will never forget.”

DJJ officials declined to comment on Dorval’s hiring, again citing the investigation.

Compass officials didn’t respond to questions about Dorval.

DJJ had no contract with Compass as of May, records show.

Patient’s death missed in screening

In state-operated jails and programs, the rules say DJJ must screen doctors’ backgrounds and verify that physicians’ hold valid medical licenses. In privately run programs, which house the majority of children in the department’s custody, that responsibility falls to contracted companies.

Such screenings don’t catch everything: Doctors who kept their licenses after the state accused them of serious lapses have gone on to work in juvenile jails and homes.

Dr. Charles J. Dack is an example. For six years, Dack, a Lakeland-based physician who is board-certified in addiction and child psychiatry, prescribed a cocktail of antidepressants and powerful painkillers, including methadone and morphine, to a patient named Mary Tuxbury.

Eventually, Dack ramped up the doses of pills Tuxbury was taking, keeping her “at a toxic level of morphine for approximately two and a half years,” regulators from the state health department said. In March 2002, Tuxbury was found dead. She was 42.

An autopsy showed she died of “multiple drug intoxication, namely opiates and tricyclic antidepressants.”

Regulators charged Dack with failing to meet care standards and inappropriate prescribing. Dack settled the allegations in August 2007. He admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to pay a $7,000 fine and complete a course on “misprescribing” drugs.

A year later, he was hired to care for children at three privately run programs in Central Florida: Wilson Youth Academy, Peace River Youth Academy and New Beginnings Youth Academy. He worked in the homes until April.

Dack didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

Doctor hired after child’s death

Other DJJ doctors weren’t cited by regulators, but they were accused in court of fatal neglect. Roughly one in eight of the psychiatrists who have worked for DJJ in the past five years has settled a malpractice lawsuit in Florida, records show.

Among these was Dr. Samuel McClure. As a psychiatrist in Orlando, McClure diagnosed an 11-year-old boy named David Morganthal with attention deficit disorder. He prescribed powerful, mind-altering drugs for David – even though the child was much smaller than other kids his age, according to court documents.

One morning in November 2001, David’s mother woke to find her son dead on the floor of her double-wide mobile home. When they laid David out at the morgue, he measured less than 4-foot-2 and weighed 49 pounds.

Lab tests showed his blood contained an unusually high concentration of an antidepressant: about 60 percent more of the medication than doctors had expected.

The drug, mirtazapine, still hasn’t been approved as safe for children. David was taking the drug along with another antidepressant that hasn’t been approved for kids, citalopram.

The autopsy concluded the boy probably died from a seizure and heart problems caused by “reaction to prescription medication.”

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/dosed-in-juvie-jail-troubled-doctors-hired-to-1549240.html?viewAsSinglePage=true

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Incredibly, FDA urged Florida not to bar foster kids from drug trials, arguing “benefits” can outweigh risks.

Monday, July 26th, 2010

HeraldTribune.com
By Tom Lyons
July 25, 2010

Apparently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had at least heard about the suicide of Gabriel Myers.

The real reason: He was 7 years old.

Whatever else might have helped lead such a young child toward ending his life, one detail was impossible to ignore: The boy was being treated with three different psychotropic medications.

Medications of that sort make some people more depressed or even suicidal, and their effects when combined are harder to predict, especially in children.

So DCF did a quick check on how many foster children were being given such drugs. Troubling facts emerged.

Not only was the percentage high, it was not really known. And, in more than a third of known cases, required approval permission documents were missing.

DCF Secretary George Sheldon quickly acknowledged the problem and started a study group to learn more and give advice. And a year later, the picture is at least more clear. Very few files lack required documentation now. And when I asked for the most current numbers, they were available, and somewhat lower. In the Sarasota-Manatee-DeSoto county region, 11 percent of foster children are given psychotropic meds. Statewide, it is 13 percent.

Some critics insist too many foster parents, lacking the skill or patience to work with troubled children who arrive as strangers, are still too quick to see medication as the way to curb problem behavior or just keep foster children quiet, no matter the side effects.

But whatever the truth of that, the study group recommended some good changes, and one made sense immediately, I thought: Ban the use of foster kids in drug trials.

Drugs helpful to some adults can react differently in children, who may suffer more extreme and unintended side effects. And so, clinical trials on children are needed, but it it is a scary field of study. The most alert and caring parents are key for monitoring the children during such trials, I would think.

So I was surprised at the FDA’s response when Sheldon wrote to ask how many Florida foster children were involved in drug studies as they bounce from foster family to foster family.

Jill Hartzler, an associate FDA commissioner, responded that the FDA — which oversees the studies to make sure children’s involvement is approved and understood by parents or guardians — didn’t have an exact number. Or even an estimate. The FDA, in fact, doesn’t have the slightest idea how many Florida foster kids are or have been involved in its drug studies.

But that wasn’t the weirdest part. Hartzler and the FDA also urged that Florida not bar foster kids from drug trials, arguing that benefits can outweigh risks.

I’m happy to say Sheldon is not taking that advice. But as he explains his reasoning more tactfully than does Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, I’ll quote Wexler, who says the FDA’s position is absurd.

Myers’ death by hanging happened in a Florida foster home last year, but that wasn’t the main reason it triggered a major reaction at Florida’s Department of Children and Families.

Read entire article here: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100725/COLUMNIST/7251032/2055/NEWS?p=1&tc=pg

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