Posts Tagged ‘Child Drugging’

Emergency Room Visits for Children’s Mental Health Fails to Help

Monday, January 9th, 2023

A New York Times article (12/27/2022) proclaimed, “Families of children with mental health needs increasingly rely on the emergency department (ED) for care.”

The article goes on to say that, “Pediatric mental health ED visits are commonly repeat visits, and most revisits occur within 6 months of initial presentation.”

The article cites a research study published December 27, 2022 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, which analyzed 308,264 pediatric (ages 3 to 17) mental health ED visits at 38 hospitals between 2015 and 2020.

Such pediatric mental health ED visits made up 4.0% of all ED visits.

The NYTimes further said that, “The patients most likely to reappear in emergency rooms were not patients who harmed themselves, but rather those whose agitation and aggressive behavior proved too much for their caregivers to manage. In many cases, repeat visitors had previously received sedatives or other drugs to restrain them when their behavior became disruptive. … Patients who required medications to subdue them were 22 percent more likely to revisit than patients who did not.”

“Families come in with their children who have severe behavioral problems, and the families really just are at their wit’s end, you know,” said Dr. Anna M. Cushing, a pediatric emergency room physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and one of the authors of the study.

“The JAMA study found that overall visits to pediatric emergency rooms for mental health crises increased 43 percent from 2015 to 2020, rising by 8 percent per year on average, with an increase in emergency visits for every category of mental illness. By comparison, emergency room visits for all medical causes rose by 1.5 percent annually.”

The sad conclusion: “Emergency room treatment is comforting to caregivers but offers little long-term benefit.”

We see several serious issues with the situation here.

1. Mental health behavior problems for children appear to be increasing.
2. Parents and other caregivers generally do not know how to cope with this.
3. Psychiatric drugs used as chemical restraints, and other psychiatric treatments, are not helping.
4. Emergency rooms are not a solution.

Why is this happening and what can be done about it?

1. Drugging children in America has reached epidemic proportions. More than 8 million children and teenagers are prescribed harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs: antidepressants, stimulants and antipsychotics. And the targets are getting younger. Children five years old and younger are the fastest growing segment of the non-adult population using antidepressants in the United States today. Many health professionals question this rampant use of pharmaceuticals on children.

The truth is, in MANY cases children acting disruptive is not a symptom of psychological or chemical disorder but … A SYMPTOM OF CHILDHOOD!

Regardless of any social, economic, political, or other considerations, these psychiatric drugs are known to cause harmful side effects including behavior problems, violence and suicide. Small wonder that mental health behavior problems for children appear to be increasing.

2. When it comes to raising children, parents must always be the first defense and have the final word. Yet witness the social upheavals currently occurring as local, state and federal governments battle among parents, school boards, psychiatrists, pharmaceutical companies, and other “know-best” vested interests, about how children should be raised and educated. No wonder parents and caregivers are confused about who is lying and who is telling the truth!

In Missouri, legislators have to fight to pass laws giving parents the right to raise their children, a right which they should already have, but are consistently denied. This makes it exceedingly difficult to provide the sane education parents need to decide what is best for their children.

3. Not only are psychiatric drugs not helping, they are actively hurting. The trouble is that psychiatric propaganda has thoroughly duped well-meaning parents, teachers and politicians alike, that normal childhood behavior is a “mental illness”, and that only by continuous, heavy drugging from an early age can children make it through life’s worst.

Seventeen million schoolchildren worldwide have now been diagnosed with so-called mental disorders and prescribed cocaine-like stimulants and powerful antidepressants as “treatment.” Biological psychiatry has yet to validate a single psychiatric diagnosis as anything neurological, biological, chemically imbalanced or genetic. The rise in gratuitous and murderous violence amongst youth is linked to the introduction of and increases in these violence-inducing drugs.

4. If emergency rooms are obviously not a solution, then what is? Well, there isn’t a single magic wand, but there are multiple recommendations; pick those you can do, and do them.

a. Contact your local, state and federal officials, and your parents’ groups and school boards, and tell them what you think; and that coercive and unworkable psychiatric methods should not be funded by the State.
b. You have the right to refuse permission for your child to be subjected to psychiatric drugs or other psychiatric treatments or interference.
c. If your child has been subjected to psychiatric treatment without your consent, consult a lawyer to determine your right to prosecute criminally and civilly.
d. Support legislative measures that will protect children from psychiatric interference.
e. Educate yourself on sane and effective alternatives to coercive and harmful psychiatric treatments.

Stop psychiatric drugging of kids.
Stop psychiatric drugging of kids

Obedience Pills: ADHD and the Medicalization of Childhood

Monday, July 25th, 2022

[Book Review by Jim Gottstein of PsychRights]

“I just finished Obedience Pills by Patrick Hahn, the latest book to be published by Samizdat Health Writer’s Co-operative.  It is a very comprehensive, very readable, account of the invention of ADHD and the total lack of any scientific support for the drugs given to suppress childish behavior by children.  And, how the diagnosis and drugs absolve parents and the other adults in their children’s lives from responsibility for raising them, as well as teaching the diagnosed they are not responsible for their behavior.  There is much more and Obedience Pills has a lot of commonsense as well as being meticulously supported.

“There are a lot of books critical of the ADHD diagnosis and ADHD drugs and I can’t say I have read that many of them, but I would put Obedience Pills on the top of the list.   I recommended Hahn’s Prescription for Sorrow about so-called antidepressants a year and a half ago and after reading Obedience Pills I plan to take out a loan to purchase his Madness and Genetic Determinism.  I am hoping it will make the genetics understandable.”

[Patrick D. Hahn is a free-lance writer and independent scholar with a long-standing interest in iatrogenic harm and the medicalization of everyday life.]

Read more about ADHD here: https://www.cchrstl.org/adhd.shtml

ADHD newborn

Suicide Attempts Increasing In Children

Monday, June 27th, 2022

Responding to federal data on increased suicide attempts by children taking antipsychotics, CCHR reiterates warning that psychotropics are linked to suicidal and homicidal acts, requiring government action.

Suicides among young people have been on the rise with federal data reporting that among those 10 to 24 years old, overall rates of deaths by suicide in the U.S. increased 57% from 2000 to 2018. More and more of these attempts are from ingesting toxic substances or overdosing on medications, a study finds. 

Astonishingly, from 2015 to 2020, researchers found suicide attempts using chemicals, including antipsychotics, soared by 28% among those aged 6 to 9 years old. The increase in children being prescribed mind-altering chemicals in the U.S. is a shocking reflection on the risks being taken with such young minds because many of the prescriptions carry a risk of suicide and violent behavior. These can drive individuals to committing irrational acts of violence and suicide.

Researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine found that the most commonly abused substances are the pain relievers acetaminophen and ibuprofen, but these were followed by atypical antipsychotics—like aripiprazole (Abilify)—the latter increasingly prescribed not only for psychosis, but also for depression. Atypical antipsychotics are added to an antidepressant, despite benefits on functioning or quality of life ranging between very small and zero, according to a PLoS Medicine study.

CCHR has consistently warned about prescription drug abuse, especially as around 21% of patient visits to psychiatrists for anxiety disorder treatment involved an antipsychotic prescription in 2004–2007, double that of 1996–1999. Children behaving badly became a target market from the early 2000s. Clinical trials recruited preschoolers to test antipsychotics for purported bipolar disorder. Psychiatrists prescribe antipsychotics to children in one third of all visits, which is three times higher than during the 1990’s, and nearly 90% of those prescriptions written between 2005 and 2009 were prescribed for something other than what the FDA approved them for. Antipsychotics have been described as a chemical lobotomy because of their ability to disable normal brain function.

All antidepressants now carry the FDA’s “Black Box” warning, alerting that they may increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children and young adults. The increase in psychotropic drug prescriptions has also brought an increase in acts of violence being committed.

The greatest increase in self-poisonings between 2015 and 2020 occurred among 10 to 12 year olds, increasing 109%. In the 13 to 15 age group, the increase was 30%; and among 16- to 19-year-olds, it was 18%. Girls were hugely overrepresented, accounting for nearly 78% of cases.

CCHR reiterates its call for mandatory toxicology tests when mass shootings and acts of violence are committed and for a database to register drug use found in the blood system of the perpetrator.

Putting Profit Above Children’s Lives

Monday, August 30th, 2021

The child mental health industry is a system that puts profit above children’s lives, preying on unsuspecting parents and taking advantage of disadvantaged children, such as those covered under Medicaid (state and federal health coverage for lower income families and those with disabilities). It is rife with abuse, yet this hugely profitable industry is rarely held to account for its rampant abuse of our most vulnerable—children.

It is an industry which milks the foster care system for huge profit, where children are four times more likely to be given mind-altering psychotropic drugs than non-foster care children, and much more likely to be prescribed cocktails of these drugs.

It is an industry that electroshocks children including babies, using state funds for lower income families (Medicaid).

It is a business masquerading as healthcare which sells parents and legislators on the idea of helping troubled children. Yet this help is more often simply incarcerating children in behavioral schools or psychiatric wards, where treatment consists of psychiatric drug cocktails, degradation, solitary confinement, and brutal restraint procedures which have killed children. And all of this is done under the guise of helping children.

The abuse is not limited to one chain of psychiatric facilities or one mode of psychiatric behavioral “treatment.” This abuse in the child mental health industry is systemic—yet unknown to most of the public.

For example: Information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveals that 19 states are currently administering electroshock to children, with 7 of those states electroshocking children aged 0-5 years old. These are all children being electroshocked while psychiatrists and facilities bill Medicaid for their “treatment.”

Yet another example — Only one month after the world witnessed the tragic death of George Floyd, unable to breathe as he was physically restrained and held to the ground, 16-year-old Cornelius Frederick, an African American, was physically restrained at Sequel Youth & Family Services’ facility in Michigan, and also cried out, “I can’t breathe!” before passing out. Thirty hours later, on May 1, 2020, he was dead. Cornelius had gone into cardiac arrest while being restrained by Lakeside Academy staff, a residential psychiatric facility that treated foster care and other kids with behavioral issues. A witness to Cornelius’s restraint said, “[T]his kid threw a sandwich. He was being unruly and they couldn’t control him. So, four guys…the size of rugby players tackled him.”

Cornelius is not alone; countless children have suffocated and died after being subjected to deadly restraints within these psychiatric facilities and behavioral treatment centers.

This is not healthcare. This is child abuse. And it is just the tip of the iceberg.

Please help us to support the cause and end the abuse of children in the psychiatric industry. We are making incredible progress, as many of the psychiatric facilities abusing these children are now under investigation. And many state legislators want to put an end to this abuse. There is more to be done, and so we ask you to continue to support our Fight For Kids campaign. Please support the cause and also watch our latest video here.

For more information, visit our Child Psychiatric Treatment page here.

Childhood Is Not A Mental Disorder

Babies Under a Year Old Being Given Harmful Psychiatric Drugs

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020

CCHR International obtained the real statistics on the number of U.S. children being prescribed psychiatric drugs: 7.2 million.

Of those, 508,000 are aged 2-5 years old, equal to the entire population of Sacramento, California. 125,000 are babies aged 0-1.

If you’re trying to visualize that number, it’s more babies than would fit into the largest college football stadium in the U.S. (Michigan Stadium, also known as “The Big House.”)

Why this isn’t generally reported is because we were only able to obtain these statistics through the purchase of a costly official report, a truly vital endeavor, made possible only through your donations.

From this, the question you’re probably asking is How on earth could 125,000 babies be put on powerful mind altering drugs?

It’s a logical question. We believe we have the answer and that with your help, together we can do something about it.

CCHR has long suspected that one of the reasons there are so many children on drugs, particularly ones so young and even babies, is through MEDICAID, which is state and federal funding for low income families, their children, as well as for foster care children. There is a financial incentive for child drugging because of Medicaid, as the states receive funding based on costs incurred for treating children, including with psychotropic drugs.

A 2015 report on Medicaid found: “The high rates of psychotropic medication use in the Medicaid population, risks associated with these drugs, and research documenting inappropriate prescribing, have raised concerns, especially for children involved in the child welfare system.”

While there has been some media coverage on this issue and concern raised by legislators, nothing truly effective is being done about it. Moreover, there has never been a state-by-state analysis of exactly how many babies and toddlers are being drugged, using taxpayer dollars (i.e. Medicaid).

In order to fully expose this, and what state legislators are unwittingly funding (baby, toddler and child drugging), CCHR International began filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for state Medicaid records (FOIA only applies to government agencies). What we have found to date is confirming our suspicions. Consider the number of Medicaid-funded children being drugged in the following states:

Georgia 177,469
Pennsylvania 150,250
Illinois 74,635
Utah 46,241

For Missouri in 2014, for example, there were 24,388 children, in or out of foster care, who were receiving public mental health services (meaning they were likely on one or more psychotropic drugs.) Total foster care drug costs have averaged roughly $16 Million per year in Missouri. More than 30 percent of Missouri’s roughly 13,000 Medicaid foster children per month are on at least one psychotropic medication, with 20 percent taking two or more psychotropic medications at the same time.

We can pretty much guarantee that state legislators are unaware that funds are being used to drug so many toddlers and infants. And because Medicaid is funded by the states, legislators can do something about it.

The idea of putting vulnerable babies and toddlers on drugs is horrifying. All of this can be hard to confront. But we must. With your help we can not only expose it, but demand that those in power do something about it.

Please contact your State Representatives and Senators and let them know what you think about this. In Missouri, find your Representative and Senator by 9-digit Zip Code here:http://www.senate.mo.gov/legislookup/ZipLookup.aspx.

Be a Hero and help someone who has been a victim of psychiatric abuse by making a tax deductible donation to CCHR St. Louis!

Child Psychiatric Treatment—Drugs, Solitary Confinement, Torture and Abuse

Wednesday, November 4th, 2020

This Is Why We Fight For Kids

THERE CAN BE NO KEENER REVELATION OF A SOCIETY’S SOUL THAN THE WAY IN WHICH IT TREATS ITS CHILDREN.” — NELSON MANDELA

The child mental health industry is a system that puts profit above children’s lives, preying on unsuspecting parents and taking advantage of disadvantaged children, such as those covered under Medicaid (state and federal health coverage for lower income families and those with disabilities). It is rife with abuse, yet this hugely profitable industry is rarely held to account for its rampant abuse of our most vulnerable—children.

It is an industry which milks the foster care system for huge profit, where children are four times more likely to be given mind-altering psychotropic drugs than non-foster care children, and much more likely to be prescribed cocktails of these drugs.

It is an industry that electroshocks children including babies, using state funds for lower income families (Medicaid).

It is a business masquerading as healthcare which sells parents and legislators on the idea of helping troubled children. Yet this help is more often simply incarcerating children in behavioral schools or psychiatric wards, where treatment consists of psychiatric drug cocktails, degradation, solitary confinement, and brutal restraint procedures which have killed children. And all of this is done under the guise of helping children.

THE ABUSE IS NOT LIMITED TO ONE CHAIN OF PSYCHIATRIC FACILITIES OR ONE MODE OF PSYCHIATRIC OR BEHAVIORAL “TREATMENT.” THE ABUSE, WHICH PROLIFERATES THE CHILD MENTAL HEALTH INDUSTRY, IS SYSTEMIC—YET UNKNOWN TO MOST OF THE PUBLIC.

For example: Information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveals that 19 states are currently administering electroshock to children, with 7 of those states electroshocking children aged 0-5 years old. These are all children being electroshocked while psychiatrists and facilities bill Medicaid for their “treatment.”

Yet another example—Only one month after the world witnessed the tragic death of George Floyd, unable to breathe as he was physically restrained and held to the ground, 16-year-old Cornelius Frederick, an African American, was physically restrained at Sequel Youth & Family Services’ facility in Michigan, and also cried out, “I can’t breathe!” before passing out. Thirty hours later, on May 1, 2020, he was dead. Cornelius had gone into cardiac arrest while being restrained by Lakeside Academy staff, a residential psychiatric facility that treated foster care and other kids with behavioral issues. A witness to Cornelius’s restraint said, “[T]his kid threw a sandwich. He was being unruly and they couldn’t control him. So, four guys…the size of rugby players tackled him.”

Cornelius is not alone; countless children have suffocated and died after being subjected to deadly restraints within these psychiatric facilities and behavioral treatment centers.

This is not healthcare. This is child abuse. And it is just the tip of the iceberg.

Therefore, please avail yourself of the information presented on our Fight For Kids website. Until enough people become aware of mental health industry abuse of children and teens, and arm themselves with the facts to protect not only their own children, but advocate for those who have no voice, it will continue. The profits will keep rolling in, parents will suffer and children will be abused.

This is the Fight For Kids.

And it is only possible through your support.

Missouri Public Schools May Become Mental Health Clinics

Monday, April 13th, 2020
A bill in the Missouri House (HB2561), if it becomes law, would provide a state subsidy up to $40,000 to public schools to hire a mental health professional.

This is part of a nationwide psychiatric effort to turn public schools into mental health clinics, while legitimate educational professionals continue to bemoan the sorry state of public education.

The sponsor of this bill, recently elected Missouri State Representative Yolanda Young (Democrat, District 22 in Kansas City), has an impressive career as a community activist. We suspect she genuinely believes that turning schools into mental health clinics is a way to improve education.

We disagree.

Children worldwide are under extremely dangerous assault. Today, parents and teachers are also deceived in the name of improved mental health and better education. The results are devastating.

As a result of psychiatric and psychological intervention in schools, harmful behaviorist programs and psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs now decimate our schools.

According to educators, academic, knowledge–based curricula have been jettisoned in favor of psychology that places so-called “mental health,” emotions and belief systems above educational outcomes.

Drugging children with addictive, violence-causing mind-altering psychotropic drugs, particularly in low-income neighborhoods, is the “mental health” currently being employed by the psychiatric mental health industry. The false rationale is, the drugged kids will now be able to compete with children from wealthier families who attend better schools.

Psychiatric drugs and psychological programs have been implicated in increasing child violence. Skyrocketing youth suicide rates have also followed in the wake of widespread psychiatric, drug–based, child programs. Meddling with the brains of children via these harmful and addictive chemicals, and fraudulent “mental health” programs, constitutes criminal assault, and it’s time it was recognized for what it is.

Contact your state legislators and tell them what you think about this.

How psychiatry Perpetuates Hunger and Malnutrition

Monday, October 21st, 2019

Reference:  United Nations Promoting Sustainable Development

Resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 25 September 2015

“Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”

Sustainable: Of, relating to, or being a method or lifestyle for using resources so that the resources can be maintained and continued, and are not depleted or permanently damaged.

[from Old French sustenir (French: soutenir), from Latin sustineo, sustinere, from sub- (under) + teneo (hold, uphold, possess, guard, maintain)]

The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and their 169 associated targets adopted in 2015 and accepted by all Member States seek to realize the human rights of all and balance economic, social and environmental factors towards peace and prosperity for all.

To this end we examine some of the existing factors which block or inhibit the realization of these goals, and which must be eliminated so that the goals can be achieved in practice.

SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and
promote sustainable agriculture

Target 2.2: By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons.

How Psychiatry Obstructs Target 2.2

The possible side effects of common psychiatric drugs typically include adverse health and nutritional effects that would interfere with proper growth and digestion, particularly for children whose tolerance for adverse reactions may be lower than that of adults. There are approximately 8 million children in the U.S. who are regularly being given psychiatric drugs, and up to 20 million worldwide.

Here are some examples of such side effects.

Psychostimulants (such as ADHD drugs): anorexia, liver problems, loss of appetite, stomach pain, stunted growth, vomiting, weight loss.

Newer antidepressants (such as SSRIs): changes in ability to taste food, heartburn, loss of appetite, indigestion, nausea, problems with teeth, stomach pain, sudden upset stomach, vomiting, weight loss.

Older antidepressants: changes in appetite or weight, constipation, diarrhea, difficulty swallowing, gas, heartburn, jaw spasms, liver problems, nausea, stomach pain, vomiting, swelling of the throat or tongue, unusual taste in the mouth.

Antipsychotics (major tranquilizers or neuroleptics): birth defects, blood disorders, blood-sugar abnormalities, constipation, liver failure, diabetes, diarrhea, difficulty swallowing, excessive weight gain, heartburn, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, indigestion, loss of appetite, nausea, pancreatitis, sore throat, vomiting.

Anti-anxiety drugs: susceptibility to infection, changes in appetite, constipation, diarrhea, seizures, heartburn, liver problems, nausea, stomach pain, swelling of the tongue or throat, upset stomach, vomiting, weight changes.

Barbiturates: kidney disease, liver disease, upset stomach.

Lithium: change in the ability to taste food, constipation, decreased appetite, diabetes, diarrhea, gas, indigestion, loss of appetite, nausea, seizures, stomach pain, swelling of the tongue or throat, thyroid problems, tongue pain, vomiting, weight gain or loss.

Of course, the real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior or study problems as “diseases.” Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax — unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous.

Psychiatry must be eradicated so that SDG 2 can occur.

How psychiatry Perpetuates Poverty

Sunday, September 29th, 2019

Reference:  United Nations Promoting Sustainable Development
Resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 25 September 2015
“Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”
Sustainable: Of, relating to, or being a method or lifestyle for using resources so that the resources can be maintained and continued, and are not depleted or permanently damaged.
[from Old French sustenir (French: soutenir), from Latin sustineo, sustinere, from sub- (under) + teneo (hold, uphold, possess, guard, maintain)]

The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and their 169 associated targets adopted in 2015 and accepted by all Member States seek to realize the human rights of all and balance economic, social and environmental factors towards peace and prosperity for all.

To this end we examine some of the existing factors which block or inhibit the realization of these goals, and which must be eliminated so that the goals can be achieved in practice.

SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere.

Target 1.5: By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters.

How Psychiatry Obstructs Target 1.5

One-fourth of America’s children live in extreme poverty. Poor children are likelier to be given harmful and addictive antipsychotics, particularly children in the foster care system. Children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic drugs at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance.

There is a clear psychiatric intention to keep poor people poor by inundating them with harmful psychotropic drugs by fraudulently diagnosing them with fake mental diseases. Contrary to psychiatric opinion, children are not “experimental animals,” they are human beings who have every right to expect protection, care, love and the chance to reach their full potential in life. They will only be denied this from within the verbal and chemical straitjackets that are psychiatry’s labels and drugs.

Psychiatry must be eradicated so that SDG 1 can occur.

Missouri Settlement Changes Psychiatric Drug Use in Foster Kids

Sunday, July 28th, 2019

A class action federal lawsuit [Case No. 2:17-cv-04102-NKL] against the Missouri Department of Social Services alleging the overdrugging of foster children with harmful and addictive psychotropic drugs was given preliminary approval for settlement by U.S. District Court Judge Nanette Laughrey (Western District of Missouri) on Monday, July 15, 2019.

[Update 1: On December 5, 2019 the Court granted final approval of the Settlement Agreement.]

[Update 2: In an April 3, 2020 order, U.S. District Judge  Nanette K. Laughrey awarded a total of $3,253,651 in fees and $132,907 in expenses to the team of 20 plaintiffs’ attorneys.]

The case was first filed in June 2017 by national non-profit organizations Children’s Rights and the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL), the Saint Louis University School of Law Legal Clinics, and pro-bono counsel Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.

The lawsuit claimed that children in Missouri foster care are at increased risk of being improperly or unnecessarily administered psychotropic drugs, leaving the children vulnerable to various serious adverse effects, including hallucinations, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

Roughly 13,000 children are in Missouri’s foster care system. More than 30% of them are prescribed these harmful drugs, and 20% are taking two or more drugs at the same time. Medicaid pays for a majority of the healthcare services that children in foster care receive, including psychotropic drugs.

Most psychotropic drugs have not been FDA approved to treat children, who are at great risk of serious harm from these drugs because the drugs play Russian Roulette with neurotransmitters in the brain.

The settlement calls for multiple reforms, although without any of the defendants admitting any liability concerning any of the claims or allegations in the complaint. Objections, support, or comments by Class members or their legal representatives (or other interested parties) can be provided by October 23, 2019 per the “Notice of Proposed Class Action Settlement in M.B., et al. v. Tidball, et al.

The Missouri Department of Social Services, on behalf of the Missouri Children’s Division of the Department of Social Services, has contracted with the University of Missouri-Columbia to constitute a Center for Excellence within its Department of Psychiatry to undertake various responsibilities regarding this settlement, for roughly $3.8 million through July 31, 2021, although this contract is not specifically part of the settlement. While we applaud the Missouri government for taking action to address the abuse of foster children in their care, we must note that having psychiatrists oversee psychiatric abuse is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Specific commitments of the settlement include (these provisions are only briefly summarized here; refer to the actual settlement for full details):
1. Children’s Division (CD) shall maintain a full-time employee responsible for overseeing the implementation of policies and procedures concerning the use of psychotropic drugs for children in CD foster care.
2. Provisions for CD Case Management Staff Training.
3. Provisions for Resource Provider Training.
4. Provisions for training in the child welfare community serving children in Missouri.
5. CD shall maintain sufficient Case Management Staff to perform functions of the agreement.
6. Every child shall have a mental health assessment prior to being prescribed a psychotropic drug.
7. Every child prescribed a psychotropic drug shall have medical examinations.
8. Every child prescribed a psychotropic drug for ongoing use shall have monitoring appointments.
9. Every child prescribed a psychotropic drug shall receive concurrent nonpharmacological treatment.
10. Defendants are committed to developing and operating one or more statewide systems for maintaining medical records and/or medical information of each child in the custody of CD.
11. Defendants are committed to developing and operating one or more systems whereby pertinent medical records and/or medical information of the child will be made available to appropriate members of the child’s treatment team.
12. CD will implement and maintain a system for conducting secondary reviews of prescriptions of psychotropic drugs prescribed to children in the legal custody of CD.
13. CD shall maintain a policy governing informed consent and informed assent for psychotropic drugs, including a process for parental disagreement. The difference between consent and assent is basically that consent comes from the case manager and assent comes from the child.
14. Provisions for emergency administration of psychotropic drugs.
15.Defendants will appoint and maintain a psychotropic drug Advisory Committee to provide professional and technical consultation and policy advice.
16. Provisions for excessive dosage guidelines.

There are other provisions for data validation, enforcement, reporting, and exit criteria from the agreement. Refer to the actual agreement for these details.

Go here for more information about psychiatric abuse in the foster care system.