Drugging Missouri Foster Children
More than 30 percent of Missouri’s foster children take psychotropic drugs, even beating California, and most of the drugs are approved only for children with severe mental problems, according to Columbia Missourian news.
Often neglected and abused, foster children are one of Missouri’s most vulnerable populations. But “experts” say the state cannot always give children the emotional support they need. Instead, their problems are dealt with another way — by prescribing harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs.
Nationally, 18 percent of foster children are given psychotropic drugs. In Missouri, it’s nearly twice that amount.
The overprescription of psychoactive drugs to foster children is alarming. Well over 5,000 Missouri foster children are taking psychiatric drugs. At least 20 percent were taking an average of two or more psychiatric drugs. Missouri spent more than $81 million on psychiatric drugs for foster children in the last five years. Antipsychotics account for more than half of the state’s spending on psychiatric medication for foster children.
In Missouri, prescription records indicate that foster children as young as 2 have been given antipsychotics.
Sign CCHR’s Petition to Prevent the Dangerous Psychotropic Drugging of California’s Foster Care Youth here.