September 20th 03, 05:31 PM
Apathy, drugs a potent mix for foster kids
Substitute the word ''my'' for ''foster.'' Then consider that
psychotropic drugs are being popped into these children like aspirin.
Some without ever seeing a psychiatric pediatrician. Some of them
infants and toddlers. Most of them unmonitored for side effects.
Would you acquiesce? Would you shrug it off, if they were your kids,
rather than some troublesome horde downgraded to the caste of foster
children?
Would you say, ''Yeah, OK, what the hell?,'' if the state of Florida
decided to medicate your toddler with buspirone or pentobarbital or
bupropion or amphetamines or lithium or sertraline?
Suppose the Florida Statewide Advocacy Council -- after learning
psychotropic drugs were being fed to your preschooler -- called this a
``disturbing discovery since most of these drugs have not been
approved for use in young children by the federal Food and Drug
Administration.''
SCARY SIDE EFFECTS
Imagine if the state were drugging your young child despite possible
side effects that included ``decreased blood flow to the brain,
cardiac arrhythmias, disruption of growth hormone leading to
suppression of growth in the body and brain of a child, weight loss,
permanent neurological tics, dystonia, addiction and abuse, including
withdrawal reactions, psychosis, depression, insomnia, agitation and
social withdrawal, suicidal tendencies, possible atrophy in the brain,
worsening of the very symptom the drugs are suppose to improve, and
decreased ability to learn.''
Not to mention the risk of tardive dyskinesia, which, according to the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, is another
potential effect of anti-psychotic drugs characterized by
``repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements. Features of the
disorder may include grimacing, tongue protrusion, lip smacking,
puckering and pursing, and rapid eye blinking. Rapid movements of the
arms, legs, and trunk may also occur. Impaired movements of the
fingers may appear as though the patient is playing an invisible
guitar or piano.''
'INTERESTING' FINDINGS
I don't know you. Maybe the potential of a sleepless, depressed,
withdrawn, suicidal, undersized, addicted, lip-smacking child playing
perpetual air guitar doesn't trouble you. But if it does, if you would
find this an unacceptable risk for your own children, then why do you
assent, in your mute apathy, to the treatments described by the
advocacy council, which pulled the files of 1,180 foster kids (out of
some 15,000) and found that 652 were being medicated on psychotropic
drugs?
The Department of Children & Families complained that the sample was
too small and yielded misleading results. Florida Medicaid, which
funds this mass child drugging, called the report's finding
``interesting and of concern.''
Interesting? If the recipient of these drugs had been the child of
someone in the Florida Medicaid hierarchy, reaction would have a bit
stronger than ''interesting and of concern.'' It was as these foster
kids were no more than lab monkeys.
OUR RESPONSIBILITY
The advocacy council only reiterated findings by The Herald's Carol
Marbin Miller in 2001, who reported that Florida was tranquilizing
foster kids, essentially using psychotropic drugs as chemical
handcuffs. She found Florida had addled 5,722 foster kids in 2000.
I followed with a column. The public would have demonstrated more
concern over lab monkeys. I can personally attest that reader reaction
to a later column about feral cats dwarfed anything I have ever
written about Florida's sorry treatment of foster children.
But consider this: Foster kids are, indeed, your moral responsibility.
You, through your hired agents at DCF, pulled them out of their homes,
pronounced them wards of the state, took control of their lives.
These aren't lab animals to be doped into a manageable stupor. They're
children.
Your children.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/fred_grimm/6797606.htm
Substitute the word ''my'' for ''foster.'' Then consider that
psychotropic drugs are being popped into these children like aspirin.
Some without ever seeing a psychiatric pediatrician. Some of them
infants and toddlers. Most of them unmonitored for side effects.
Would you acquiesce? Would you shrug it off, if they were your kids,
rather than some troublesome horde downgraded to the caste of foster
children?
Would you say, ''Yeah, OK, what the hell?,'' if the state of Florida
decided to medicate your toddler with buspirone or pentobarbital or
bupropion or amphetamines or lithium or sertraline?
Suppose the Florida Statewide Advocacy Council -- after learning
psychotropic drugs were being fed to your preschooler -- called this a
``disturbing discovery since most of these drugs have not been
approved for use in young children by the federal Food and Drug
Administration.''
SCARY SIDE EFFECTS
Imagine if the state were drugging your young child despite possible
side effects that included ``decreased blood flow to the brain,
cardiac arrhythmias, disruption of growth hormone leading to
suppression of growth in the body and brain of a child, weight loss,
permanent neurological tics, dystonia, addiction and abuse, including
withdrawal reactions, psychosis, depression, insomnia, agitation and
social withdrawal, suicidal tendencies, possible atrophy in the brain,
worsening of the very symptom the drugs are suppose to improve, and
decreased ability to learn.''
Not to mention the risk of tardive dyskinesia, which, according to the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, is another
potential effect of anti-psychotic drugs characterized by
``repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements. Features of the
disorder may include grimacing, tongue protrusion, lip smacking,
puckering and pursing, and rapid eye blinking. Rapid movements of the
arms, legs, and trunk may also occur. Impaired movements of the
fingers may appear as though the patient is playing an invisible
guitar or piano.''
'INTERESTING' FINDINGS
I don't know you. Maybe the potential of a sleepless, depressed,
withdrawn, suicidal, undersized, addicted, lip-smacking child playing
perpetual air guitar doesn't trouble you. But if it does, if you would
find this an unacceptable risk for your own children, then why do you
assent, in your mute apathy, to the treatments described by the
advocacy council, which pulled the files of 1,180 foster kids (out of
some 15,000) and found that 652 were being medicated on psychotropic
drugs?
The Department of Children & Families complained that the sample was
too small and yielded misleading results. Florida Medicaid, which
funds this mass child drugging, called the report's finding
``interesting and of concern.''
Interesting? If the recipient of these drugs had been the child of
someone in the Florida Medicaid hierarchy, reaction would have a bit
stronger than ''interesting and of concern.'' It was as these foster
kids were no more than lab monkeys.
OUR RESPONSIBILITY
The advocacy council only reiterated findings by The Herald's Carol
Marbin Miller in 2001, who reported that Florida was tranquilizing
foster kids, essentially using psychotropic drugs as chemical
handcuffs. She found Florida had addled 5,722 foster kids in 2000.
I followed with a column. The public would have demonstrated more
concern over lab monkeys. I can personally attest that reader reaction
to a later column about feral cats dwarfed anything I have ever
written about Florida's sorry treatment of foster children.
But consider this: Foster kids are, indeed, your moral responsibility.
You, through your hired agents at DCF, pulled them out of their homes,
pronounced them wards of the state, took control of their lives.
These aren't lab animals to be doped into a manageable stupor. They're
children.
Your children.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/fred_grimm/6797606.htm