Florida to FDA: No Foster Kids in Psychotropic Trials

For some time it has been known that children in foster care are victims of over-prescribing by doctors and psychiatrists. The CCHR website says that “42 percent of all kids in foster care are taking three or more mood-altering drugs.” Does that mean that nearly half of foster care children are “mentally ill”? Is that even possible? Personally, in the course of my work, I have spoken to social workers who openly admitted to me that foster care children are prescribed an alarming amount of psychiatric drugs.

But worse than that, one of the most horrific situations I can think of is a foster child being used as a test subject by the drug companies as has been the case in Florida. But this week, finally, some sanity found its way to the Florida’s foster care system. A Florida spokeswoman said, “…the Department of Children and Families, not the FDA, is responsible for the protection of children in its care and takes those responsibilities extremely seriously. To that end, we have, by administrative procedures, prohibited the use of children in state care in clinical trials relating to the development of new psychotropic medications.”

This is great news.

© 2010, Sigal Adini. All rights reserved.