Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6288

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Publication type: news

Drugging children in foster-care
CBS Evening News With Katie Couric 2006 Oct 18
http://mms.tveyes.com/transcript.asp

Full text:

TV news report at http://mms.tveyes.com/transcript.asp

WBZ-BOS (CBS) — CBS Evening News With Katie Couric

WBZ 10/18/06 18:44:24: …>> couric: how’s this for a very scary number? in the last ten years, the use of anti-psychotic drugs on young children and teenagers has increased more than 500%. there’s growing concern these drugs are being given in even greater doses to kids in foster care, putting them in a virtual chemical straight jacket. here’s national correspondent byron pitts with tonight’s ““eye on your children.”“ >> reporter: colby, quit doing stuff like that now. >> i’m all right. >> reporter: diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, even his mother admits eight-year-old colby can be a handful at home. but does such behavior merit the treatment colby received in foster care? how many foster homes was me. >> at least five. >> reporter: andrea lost custody of her son when he was seven after her ex-husband made allegations of sexual abuse. allegations that later proved false. in the meantime, colby was placed in the texas foster care system for 18 months. 18 months that, according to his mother, he was overmedicated. when he was in foster care, he was on 20 different drugs? >> yes. yes. at least that many. >> reporter: how do you explain that? >> i have no idea. it was never explained to me. >> reporter: while in foster care, colby was also diagnosed as bipolar. and according to his medical records, he was taking as many as 40 medications at the same time that game him seizures. >> i woke up i was at the hospital with something in my arm. >> reporter: he is not alone. >> i found babies, two-year-olds three-year-olds being given mind altering drugs. >> reporter: carol keaton is the state come troller from texas. she’s conducted her own two year investigation into allegations foster kids in texas are overmedicated. >> children in foster care in texas are dying. children in foster care in texas are being drugged. >> reporter: there are similar allegationings being made in california, ohio, and in florida. in florida, for example, foster kids younger than five years old were treated with psychiatric medications at a rate nearly four times higher than a general population of children receiving medicaid. >> yes, this child is on six different psychotropic drugs. seven different psychotropic drugs. >> reporter: gwen olson is an advocate and child pharmaceutical rep who wrote this book ““confessions of an rx drug pusher.”“ after seeing so many children given so many drugs… >> they clamp down on the central nervous system, in effect, they reduce your mobility and that sort of thing so they’re sort of like a…