The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®)
announces the unsealing today of a major Medicaid Fraud lawsuit against
psychiatrists, their employers, pharmacies, state officials, and a medical
education and publishing company for their roles in submitting fraudulent claims
to Medicaid.
....The Complaint walks through the lack of science
supporting the practice and the methods used by the pharmaceutical industry to
induce psychiatrists to improperly prescribe these drugs."Even
though the drug companies have been using these methods to induce psychiatrists
to prescribe these drugs, it is the psychiatrists' responsibility to base their
decisions on the facts, not drug company marketing,"said Mr.
Gottstein, continuing, "the
uncritical acceptance of pharmaceutical company hype represents a massive
betrayal of trust by the psychiatrists prescribing these drugs to children and
youth."FULL
STORY
Twenty-two years after the US marketing of Prozac, which changed the
marketing, prescribing and widespread consumption of psychoactive
drugs--a meta-analysis of six large studies published in the Journal
of the Medical Association (JAMA) confirms that industry's
blockbuster drugs, SSRI antidepressants were unable to outperform
placebos for moderate symptoms of depression. Just like
the older, much cheaper tricyclic antidepressants, SSRIs show a clinical
value only for severely depressed--i.e., clinically dysfunctional--
patients.
In other words, antidepressants are worthless for most of the people
for whom they are prescribed. FULL
STORY
They are especially worthless
for all the kids that CPS has put on dope in order to make them
complaint and make them "medically needy" in order to
fraudulently collect their Medicare money. Also
see Doping
the Kids- The Pharmacaust
(NaturalNews) Research from The National Institute
of Mental Health has revealed that popular Attention Deficit Disorder
(ADD) drugs like Ritalin are responsible for causing sudden death in many
children. Study numbers indicate a 500 percent increased risk in childhood
death from taking such mental health drugs.
For years, many experts, scientists, and health
practitioners have speculated that ADD drugs are dangerous and can cause
serious injury and death. Etta Brown, a licensed educational psychologist
and author of Learning Disabilities: Understanding the Problem and
Managing the Challenges explained in response to the study that drugs like
Ritalin actually destroy the neural function in children’s brains. As a
result, children who have undergone treatment with Ritalin will actually
have a much more difficult time processing information and learning new
things.
Brown also notes that Ritalin is responsible for
causing a permanent tic in the face, neck, and head of many of the
children who have taken or are taking it. Ironically, Ritalin is
responsible for causing far more serious neurological damage than the
problems it is alleged to treat. Comprehensive studies over the years have
revealed that while drugs like Ritalin visibly calm children, these drugs
destroy their delicate, developing nervous systems and can permanently
cripple their ability to function as normal human beings. FULL
STORY
Child Myths
Straight Talk About Child Development
by Jean Mercer, Ph.D.
Published on December 12, 2009
According to research discussed in the New York Times this
morning, children whose family poverty makes them eligible for Medicaid are four
times as likely to be given antipsychotic drugs than children whose families
have private health insurance, and the drugs are more likely to be given to the
Medicaid children for less severe mental and behavioral conditions (Wilson,D.[2009,
Dec. 12]. Poor children likelier to get antipsychotics. New York Times, p. A1,
p. A11). Concerns about this are related to the known potential side effects of
such drugs, including serious weight gain and metabolic changes which do not
disappear when the medication is stopped. Because of these worries, a group of
state Medicaid directors has started a project called "Too Many, Too Much,
Too Young" (sorry, I cannot find any web site discussing this project; can
readers help?).
Whether the differences in treatment of Medicaid-covered
children and privately-insured children are a good thing or a bad one is a
question that only appropriate empirical work can answer. It's conceivable,
logically, that in spite of the adverse side effects, the "Medicaid
children" are receiving benefits that are denied to the privately-insured
children. In this post, I am not going to make any attempt to guess at the
answer to this question or to recommend how medication OUGHT to be used.
Instead, I am going to speculate on possible causes for the situation as it
appears to exist. Readers of these speculations should keep in mind two
important points: a) that there are differences other than simple income level
between the population of families who are eligible for Medicaid and those who
are privately insured, and 2) there are treatments for mental illness and
behavioral problems that do not involve medication.
So, here are some possible reasons behind the differences
in prescription of antipsychotics to different groups of children: FULL
STORY
New federally financed drug research reveals a stark
disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic
medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private
insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for
less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.
Children and Antipsychotic Drugs Those findings, by a team
from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running
debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric
drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most
efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much
differently for middle-class children?
The questions go beyond the psychological impact on
Medicaid children, serious as that may be. Antipsychotic drugs can also have
severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes
resulting in lifelong physical problems.
On Tuesday, a pediatric advisory committee to the Food and
Drug Administration met to discuss the health risks for all children who take
antipsychotics. The panel will consider recommending new label warnings for the
drugs, which are now used by hundreds of thousands of people under age 18 in
this country, counting both Medicaid patients and those with private insurance.
Meanwhile, a group of Medicaid medical directors from 16
states, under a project they call Too Many, Too Much, Too Young, has been
experimenting with ways to reduce prescriptions of antipsychotic drugs among
Medicaid children.
They plan to publish a report early next year. FULL
STORY
Too late for him -- the foster kid we addled with
anti-depressants and anti-psychotics without quite knowing the effects drug
cocktails might have on a 7-year-old.
One potential side effect of feeding Lexapro, Zyprexa and
Symbyax to a 67-pound child became grotesquely obvious. Young Gabriel coiled a
shower hose around his neck and hanged himself in the bathroom of his Miramar
foster home.
Gabriel's death on April 15 roiled child advocates,
critics of the pharmaceutical industry, the media. But this week, a child's
suicide finally elicited a reaction where it matters.
``I tell you, we're going to do something. We're
going to do a full-court press,'' said State Sen. Tony Hill, a
Jacksonville Democrat, still shocked after members of the Senate Children,
Families and Elder Affairs Committee were briefed Wednesday by the Gabriel Myers
Task Force. FULL
STORY
TALLAHASSEE — Alarmed lawmakers said Wednesday they plan to push through
legislation next year to try to prevent overuse of mind-altering drugs by
foster children after the apparent suicide of a 7-year-old boy last April.
Members of the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee from
both parties said the state needed to toughen laws and rules for
prescribing psychiatric drugs to children in the wake of the hanging death
of Gabriel Myers and an ongoing examination by a Department of Children
and Families task force.
Jim Sewell, a former assistant commissioner of the Florida Department of
Law Enforcement and chair of the group, presented some of the task
force’s findings to the committee at a meeting Wednesday.
But even as they pledged action, committee members and officials with DCF
acknowledged that the state has tried before to get handle on the number
of children taking psychiatric drugs and how the state goes about getting
approval for those children to use the medications.
“It’s the same problem over and over and over again,” said Sen.
Ronda Storms, R-Valrico. FULL
STORY
You get what you pay for.
There's LOT$ of Money to be made from "Special Needs
Kids". We have heard up to $12,000 a month. This is
FRAUD upon the Federal Funding Streams by CPS and their colluding
contractors.
The state's Department of Children and Families is under
fire again, and rightly so.
Recently, a task force issued its final report documenting
how weak oversight and lax compliance with guidelines fostered a culture where
officials often blindly doled out powerful drugs as chemical pacifiers to help
caregivers manage difficult children.
These troubling concerns aren't new to DCF. But in the
wake of the withering report, DCF Secretary George Sheldon concedes lapses and
vows to heed and fund task-force proposals.
Such accountability is encouraging. But we expected reform
before. In 2003, the
Statewide Advocacy Council report made similar findings, and concluded,
"...unnecessary dispensing of psychotropic medication remains a threat to
[foster children]. Until there is more information regarding the safety and
efficiency of these drugs, Florida's foster care children should be monitored
closely."
That report's proposals were largely ignored. Now, six
years later, only swift reforms and a strong mandate to comply with existing
rules that govern psychotropic drugs will shelve suspicions that this is déjà
vu all over again. FULL
STORY
Foster
care workers at all levels routinely ignored policies designed to protect
children in their care from being given psychotropic drugs without proper
consent or monitoring. These fascist thugs
are practicing "medicine" without a license.
That was the conclusion of a panel looking into the April
suicide of Gabriel Myers, a 7-year-old foster child who killed himself in
Margate, South Florida, while taking two psychotropic medications.
The 26-page report, released Thursday, highlighted a lack
of communication, inadequate supervision and inaccurate information in the
Department of Children and Families' handling of Myers' case. About 15
percent of foster children in out of home care are on at least one
psychotropic medication. The truth is probably
more like 90% are on dope.
DCF Secretary George Sheldon said he looks forward to
hearing the work group's recommendations. Among the options: a second-party
review of all foster children on psychotropic drugs regardless of the diagnosis.
Or alternatively, WHY DO CHILDREN NEED
DOPE? They just want to go home.
FORT LAUDERDALE - The head of the state's child welfare
agency is recommending stricter rules for prescribing powerful anti-depressants
and other drugs to foster children after a 7-year-old in state care committed
suicide.
George Sheldon, the secretary of the Department of
Children and Families, said Thursday he might consider recommending additional
review for all children in state custody on such medications and the appointment
of a new in-house state medical director to keep tabs on cases.
The department released a 55-page preliminary finding in
the case Thursday, four months after Gabriel Myers hung himself with a
retractable showerhead at his foster home.
"If you [prescribe psychotropic meds] there's got to
be a treatment plan in place, there's got to be an end date in place and there's
got to be ongoing dialogue," Sheldon told The Associated Press.
The new report found a lack of accountability and
inadequate supervision in every step of Gabriel's case. FULL
STORY
Or someone with common sense could ask
why kidnapped 7-year-olds need doped out of their skulls.
Child-welfare
panel: Psychotropic drugs relied on to manage foster kids
Florida's mental health system for foster kids relies far too often on drugs,
with little oversight, according to a draft report on the suicide of 7-year-old
Gabriel Myers.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
cmarbin@MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Wednesday, 08.12.09
This is certainly no new revelation.
This is the standard Method of Operation, and it has been for at least 15 years.
CPS is the very definition of FRAUD upon Medicare.
TALLAHASSEE — As Gov. Charlie Crist barnstormed the
state to boast about a record number of adoptions in Florida, two adoptive
parents urged him Tuesday to go a step further and stop what they called the
"chemical restraint'' of overmedicated children in state care.
Mirko and Regina Ceska told Crist that when they adopted
their two 12-year-old children last year, each was taking 11
pills daily, including the powerful antipsychotic drug Seroquel.
(Black
Box Warning)
"These girls were overdosed and would fall
asleep right in front of us several times a day," said Mirko Ceska.
"It seems to be a prerequisite for foster
children to be on medication," he added. FULL
STORY
Florida Today Our
views: Foster kid alert
Sanction doctors, child workers who ignore rules in prescribing psychiatric
drugs
July 8, 2009
A new study of doctors’ and caseworkers’ compliance
with legal rules when foster kids in Florida are prescribed mental-health drugs,
such as antidepressants, is disturbing and demands action.
Among the glaring discrepancies the Department of Children
and Families report found:
...In 76 percent of cases, social workers didn’t give
parents information about medications prescribed for children.
The report — which looked at 6- and 7-year-olds — also
found workers frequently failed to talk with parents or guardians before seeking
a court order to medicate a child, or to inform the court if parental consent
wasn’t obtained.
...there’s no excuse for ignoring rules meant to protect
children who have already been abused or neglected from more harm.
After a final report is issued in August, physicians or
workers found to have knowingly broken the rules should face strong sanctions.
The disproportionate numbers of Florida’s 20,000 foster kids taking
mental-health drugs — more than 13 percent — must also be more deeply
investigated. FULL
STORY
Comment from AFRA NewsHawk-
These children aren't having their
legal rights represented and protected. This is the fault of the lawyers and
judges involved in these cases, until we realize that and demand judges be held
accountable for upholding the law- nothing will change.
Study: Florida's psych drug rules for foster kids ignored
A new state study found that child-welfare doctors and case workers aren't
following the rules when it comes to the drugging of 6- and 7-year-olds in
state care.
BY MARC CAPUTO Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
7-7-09
TALLAHASSEE -- Child-welfare doctors (CPS
shills and colluders)
and case managers routinely failed
to complete legally required treatment plans (or
ANY plan other than make him a legal orphan) , share information or
properly document(you
can be sure they got the applications in for the Social Security Title IV
and XX and Medicaid done promptly) the prescribing of powerful psychiatric drugs for
children, according to a new state study of 6- and 7-year-olds medicated
in state care.
One of the 268 children was Gabriel Myers. The troubled 7-year-old,
medicated with an adult anti-depressant known to cause suicides in
children (probably
a Federal Crime, but who's watching?), hanged himself in April in his Margate foster home.
But the state study, which documents how many times caseworkers and
doctors followed child-welfare rules and laws, shows that it would be a
mistake to blame Gabriel's death solely on the drug, Symbyax, said
Florida's drug czar, William Janes.
''It wasn't just the medications,'' said Janes, who sits on a committee
investigating ways to prevent cases like Gabriel's. ``It was the system
and his world. His environment just collapsed on him. And there was no one
there to really put their arms around him.'' ("In
the Best Interest of the Child" and above their pay grade. Too
over-worked and under-paid for that. Does it take a village full of idiots
to kill a kid?) FULL STORY
Florida- Amid a wide-ranging debate over the proper use of mental health drugs on
troubled children, the mother of a disabled boy who died in 2007 is
claiming in a lawsuit the boy was overdosed by a cocktail of psychiatric
drugs, including two powerful anti-psychotics.
Martha Quesada, the mother of 12-year-old Denis Maltez, filed a wrongful
death and medical malpractice lawsuit Monday in Miami-Dade circuit court,
claiming Denis' psychiatrist, Dr. Steven L. Kaplan, and the now-shuttered
Rainbow Ranch group home overmedicated Denis and failed to properly
monitor his condition.
Denis, who was diagnosed with autism, died of serotonin syndrome,
according to a 2007 autopsy by the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's office.
The rare condition, which can be life-threatening, occurs when a
combination of drugs -- particularly mental-health drugs -- causes the
brain to produce an excess of serotonin, a chemical produced by nerve
cells that regulates mood. The condition can cause rigidity and tremors,
as well as confusion and high blood pressure, said Dr. Carlos Singer, a
professor of neurology at the University of Miami's medical school. FULL
STORY
BOSTON - Already the target of a civil medical malpractice lawsuit, the
psychiatrist who prescribed the drugs that killed 4-year-old Rebecca
Riley is now the subject of a grand jury criminal investigation.
There's a "perfect storm" hailing little colored pills down on America's kids with the force of bullets.
As a clinical psychologist, I've been forecasting it for years, and now I'm issuing a warning to America's parents that it's here. This "perfect storm" was formed by the convergence of three "fronts":
FULL
STORY
In this lawsuit PsychRights is seeking declaratory and
injunctive relief that Alaskan children and youth have the right not to be
administered psychotropic drugs unless and until:
(i) evidence-based psychosocial interventions have
been exhausted,
(ii) rationally anticipated benefits of psychotropic
drug treatment outweigh the risks,
(iii) the person or entity authorizing administration
of the drug(s) is fully informed, and
(iv) close monitoring of, and appropriate means of
responding to, treatment emergent effects are in place,
and that all children and youth currently receiving such
drugs be evaluated and brought into compliance with the above.
Marketing a Phony "Miracle" Drug
Zyprexa was created to treat schizophrenia, but
it wound up being used on depressed moms and misbehaving kids. How one of
the nation's biggest pharmaceutical companies turned a flawed, dangerous
pill into a multi-billion- dollar bonanza — and who paid the price.
Bitter
Pill Created to treat schizophrenia,
Zyprexa wound up being used on misbehaving kids. How the pharmaceutical
industry turned a flawed and dangerous drug into a $16 billion bonanza By Ben Wallace-Wells
Jan 28, 2009
I am
remembering back to 1999 when my witch CPS worker threatened me with a
Federal Charge if I had a problem with our misbehaving kid being on this
sort of dope. CPS totally destroyed him. And they tried to
destroy me too. Actually, they
did
dis-or-der (dĭs-ôr'dər)–noun
1. lack of order or regular arrangement; confusion: Your room is in utter disorder.
2. an irregularity: a disorder in legal proceedings.
3. breach of order; disorderly conduct; public disturbance.
4. a disturbance in physical or mental health or functions; malady or dysfunction: a mild stomach disorder.
–verb (used with object) 5. to destroy the order or regular arrangement of; disarrange.
6. to derange the physical or mental health or functions of.
CONTEXT. Studies have revealed that youth in
foster care covered by Medicaid insurance receive psychotropic medication
at a rate >3 times that of Medicaid-insured youth who qualify by low
family income
This is part and parcel of the
FRAUD upon the Federal Funding Streams by CPS and their colluding
contractors we complain about.
All of a sudden, it
seems, millions of American children are said to be afflicted with mental
illnesses. And they’re being put on strong medications—over periods of
years—as treatment. Isn’t it time we stopped and looked at what the mental
health establishment is getting us to do to our children?
By Praetor
on Friday, February 11, 2000 - 02:27 pm: Edit
Post1)Alternative
discipline?
I am a social worker in South - Africa. As most poeple know our
country has gone through various political changes since 1994,
with the fall of "apartheid." This has had various
consequences in our schools. Suddenly the number of children per
class was increased to about 40-50 per class. Suddenly all races
were also mixed in schools. At
the same time the basic policies underlying education was
changed to that of an outcomes based system like that of many
european countries as well as America. Physical
punishment, which was a very powerful part of our previous
education system and culture was also outlawed.This
created a problem. Most teachers were used to using physical
forms of punishement like spanking as a diciplinary method. Now
they may not, and this has led to chaos in schools. Never
before have we seen such discipline troubles in schools.
Part of the problems is the fact that teachers lack skills in
alternative methods of discipline. This has led me to working
with various teachers in order to find solutions. What other
methods are open to them? How do they learn these methods? What
works and what doesn't? I would enjoy any inputs or advice form
other socila workers or students.
Well
Praetor... there's drugs. That's about it. Here in
America we are now charging kids with crimes and destroying
their future- and their parent's too, rather than spank them.
Those
are the "alternative methods of discipline".
"We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental
hygiene
and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful
thinking." -Humanist
Manifesto I, Eleventh Point
BY MARC CAPUTO Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
