FDA Drug Limit Exceeded in Foster Children

Is the system failing these children?

A federal report reveals the hidden truth of how children in the foster care system are really receiving treatment, doctors are over prescribing drugs as a mean to treat foster kids.

Medical experts and lawmakers in surmounting concern due to this study conducted by the Government Accountability Office.

These children are wards of the state which are placed in certified homes of foster parents or caregivers, most of the times on a short term basis until a permanent home can be arranged.

Medical experts do note that foster children usually struggle with emotional issues but the experts say that some of the children in the foster care system are receiving medications at unnecessary high levels and are treated with psychotropic drugs like Cymbalta and Ritalin.

Not only are medical experts and lawmakers in concern but foster parents as well such as Lisa Ward, foster parent to Brooke in Florida.

Just recently, Brooke who is seven years old and weighs 43 pounds was on numerous psychotropic drugs. Brookes birth mother's history was drug dealing and prostitution. A bad deck given to a young Brooke. She was prone to wild behavior and extreme tantrums.

According to her foster mother she was told by a Florida foster care agency to take her to a mental health clinic. It was at the clinic she received prescriptions for anti-psychotic medications. Her foster mother recalls that probably in a few weeks the clinic decided that those drugs most likely were not working and tried something else. According to Ms. Ward this was not helping Brooke but making her worse. Brooke had received ten different drugs within a period of four months and the clinic frequently increasing the dosage. The rage just kept increasing in Brooke.

Ms. Ward felt it was time for a change and had taken the girl to a private doctor in which she herself paid for. The doctor, Dr. Luis Quinones, a psychiatrist was shocked by the drugs Brooke was taking.

For Brooke, there is a happy ending. She is being weaned off all the medications and even though she still has emotional challenges she is now on a new medication which cannot be prescribed.

Ms. Ward recently asked Brooke “What's another choice over a tantrum?” Brookes answer “ to hug you.”

Unfortunately, the happy endings are far and few and changes need to be made especially where Medicaid is concerned.

The GAO, has submitted its findings as part of a senate hearing.

The report had found medication amounts surpassing the maximum doses for a child's age were many times greater to be prescribed to foster children instead of other children in federal-state programs for low income.

Foster children were between 2.7 and 4.5 more likely to put on psychotropic drugs than those children that are not foster and on medicaid, dependent upon what state they reside in.

Usually foster children do have more emotional issues and harrowing pasts than other children who are on Medicaid. However, both children foster and non-foster can be over medicated due to the fact they see general practitioners instead of receiving counseling.

Dr. Jon McClellan, M.D., child psychiatrist at the University of Washington on Thursday stated to lawmakers "The high-risk practices identified by the GAO study raise significant concerns regarding the treatment of severely mentally ill and vulnerable youth,.

Democratic and Republican senators are in agreement and stated both federal and state agencies which supervise Medicaid need to curb the over prescribing of drugs.

Senator Tom CarperTom Carper, (D) Delaware, had remarked that there is no evidence for the “using of five mind altering medications in adult, let alone a child.”

Senator Scott BrownScott Brown, Republican Massachusetts, in one word called the findings “shocking”.

Senior official Byran Samuels, who oversees Medicaid at the Federal Department of Health and Human Services agrees with the current overuse of psychotropic medications among children especially those children in the foster care system. He has stated that his department has written to state medicaid agencies to “raise awareness” in these issues.

The study had focused their attention on Medicaid programs in the states of Florida, Michigan, Texas, Massachusetts and Oregon in 2008. At that time the GOP stated that 1,752 children in those programs had received five or more drugs at one time.

This leaves us wondering if the government had failed to oversee children in foster care programs? Are the doctors across America who treat foster children placing them at risk by prescribing too may medications and above the FDA approved dosage limits? Are the drug manufactures also a catalyst when it comes anti-psychotics considering four drug manufactures had paid out over $2 billion in a settlement on claims that they had illegally marketed these drugs to children, even though they are denying any wrong doing on their part.

One social worker at related to ABC News who had asked not to be identified that every child she had seen was on some kind of psychotropic medication. According to the social worker "It's much easier to medicate a child than it is to physically restrain them, then it is to pay $200 an hour to a therapist to talk through their problems with them."

The foster parent's are placing their trust and faith in a system that is not is looking out for the child but using the answer of over mediating to solve their emotional issues.

Tonight at 10:00 pm, 20/20, Diane Sawyer investigates Drugs in the Foster Care System.