As reported on ABC News, “A 12-year-old boy told Congress today that he was medicated into a near-stupor with mind-altering drugs during the four years he bounced among foster care homes.”
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the federal government had not done enough to oversee the treatment of foster children with powerful drugs. The report, whose contents were revealed by ABC News on November 30, coincided with a nationwide ABC investigation on the overuse of the most potent mind-altering drugs on many of the country’s nearly 425,000 foster children.
The report found that drug amounts exceeding maximum doses for a child’s age were many times more likely to be prescribed to foster children than to other children in the federal-state program for lower-income people. The GAO, which submitted its findings as part of a Senate hearing, also found that foster children were several times more likely than other Medicaid youngsters to be taking five or more psychotropic drugs at the same time. Among the drugs analyzed were antipsychotics such as Abilify and Risperdal, antidepressants such as Cymbalta and Paxil, and attention-deficit hyperactivity-disorder drugs such as Ritalin and Strattera. [Fox News]
Quoting from the GAO report, “no evidence supports the concomitant use of five or more psychotropic drugs in adults or children, yet hundreds of both foster and nonfoster children in the five states had such a drug regimen. Similarly, thousands of foster and nonfoster children were prescribed doses higher than the maximum levels cited in guidelines developed by Texas based on FDA-approved labels, which GAO’s experts said increases the risk of adverse side effects and does not typically increase the efficacy of the drugs to any significant extent. Further, foster and nonfoster children under 1 year old were prescribed psychotropic drugs, which GAO’s experts said have no established use for mental health conditions in infants; providing them these drugs could result in serious adverse effects.”
ABC News 20/20 aired three episodes exposing the fact that doctors are putting foster children on harmful, mind-altering drugs at rates up to 13 times that of children in the general population.
Social Services are in severe need of a change. My daughter was deeply depressed and they took the children out of MY home because they didn’t want the children to see her that way. They seem to forget, I, the grandmother, was in the home. There is NO evidence of abuse. Although they did not want my daughter alone with the children while she got counseling and we could get family counseling, they refused to help me with child care since. WHAT ABOUT PARENTS WHO SMOKE OR DRINK IN THE HOME??? Should those children been removed under these guidelines? My granddaughter, Arielle, age 5, has been placed in foster care. It’s been a horrible event and has opened my eyes to the judicial system as well as Social Services and Foster Care. THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE FAMILY. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THAT. Mayor Sessoms needs to clean house.
I am a good Christian woman with a stable and safe home. I work hard and I am a good citizen of the city of Virginia Beach.
Our last court session, in December, trying to get my granddaughter back, was set for 10:30 am. We did not get into court until 4pm. For the first half hour, we had to listen to Judge Rawls complain about how she was not suppose to hear this case and how upset she was that she only had 15 minutes to read a 32 page document from social services and how many judges had already passed on it and yada yada yada. WoW … don’t our taxes pay her?
Three attorneys including my granddaughter’s attorney, who was appointed by the court to decide what was in the best interest of the child, ALL recommended Arielle be placed back in my home with me. One attorney even said we were being railroaded. Yet, since the judge was already angry that she was there, did not care who I was, what kind of person I was or what was in the best interest of my granddaughter.
She decided it was better for Arielle to be kept in foster care where she is being drugged with anxiety medication to help her cope with foster care (because the child therapist could only determine that Arielle was suffering from anxiety separation.) The way I was treated in court was unbelievable. I just could not believe it. And yet again the case it postpone to a future day, which I have yet to be informed. We did not get out of court until 7pm.
I encourage you to check out Anderson Cooper’s report in December on Foster care drugging children as young as one-year-old. Also read Judith Warner’s article in Time Magazine (12/02/2011) on Overmedicating Foster Kids.
My friends, family and Church are ALL outraged and just cannot understand how this could happen.
I can’t tell you the last time I’ve been able to sleep at night. When I lay my head down at night all I see are Arielle’s face.