Tag Archives: Foster children

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

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.

Psychiatric Drug Abuse of Foster Care Kids Costs Government Billions; Feds now investigating potentially massive fraud

Now, the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, chaired by Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, has asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the drugging of foster care children. The investigators will attempt to account for estimates in the hundreds of millions of dollars of possible fraud arising from prescriptions for drugs explicitly barred from Medicaid coverage. The GAO is collecting data from Oregon, Massachusetts, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, and Texas, to search for patterns of abuse.

42 percent of all kids in foster care are taking three or more mood-altering drugs

Here’s just one statistic that Danbury school psychologist Charles Manos worries about: 42 percent of all kids in foster care are taking three or more mood-altering drugs. “All kids in foster care have some story of trauma, like abuse or neglect, so we need to ask the question `How are we dealing with trauma?'” Manos asked.

New York Times exposes psychiatric abuse of Foster kids: Children are put in psych wards for disciplinary reasons

A federal lawsuit is seeking to bar New York City from allowing troubled foster-care children to be kept in psychiatric hospitals after doctors have recommended their release, a practice that routinely adds months to a hospitalization despite laws that require such children to be placed in the least restrictive environment possible.

Florida looks to curb drugging kids with bill named after 7-yr-old who hanged himself on prescribed drug cocktail

Florida lawmakers are scheduled to discuss a measure Tuesday designed to curb the prescription of mental-health drugs to children in state care. Senate Bill 2718, also known as the Gabriel Myers Bill, would allow officials to more closely monitor the powerful psychiatric drugs dispensed to Florida foster care children.