Lyons: Government is daring to keep kids on drugs

Lyons: Government is daring to keep kids on drugs

By Tom Lyons

Published: Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 7:32 p.m.
Apparently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had at least heard about the suicide of Gabriel Myers.


Myers' death by hanging happened in a Florida foster home last year, but that wasn't the main reason it triggered a major reaction at Florida's Department of Children and Families.

The real reason: He was 7 years old.

Whatever else might have helped lead such a young child toward ending his life, one detail was impossible to ignore: The boy was being treated with three different psychotropic medications.

Medications of that sort make some people more depressed or even suicidal, and their effects when combined are harder to predict, especially in children.

So DCF did a quick check on how many foster children were being given such drugs. Troubling facts emerged.

Not only was the percentage high, it was not really known. And, in more than a third of known cases, required approval permission documents were missing.

DCF Secretary George Sheldon quickly acknowledged the problem and started a study group to learn more and give advice. And a year later, the picture is at least more clear. Very few files lack required documentation now. And when I asked for the most current numbers, they were available, and somewhat lower. In the Sarasota-Manatee-DeSoto county region, 11 percent of foster children are given psychotropic meds. Statewide, it is 13 percent.

Some critics insist too many foster parents, lacking the skill or patience to work with troubled children who arrive as strangers, are still too quick to see medication as the way to curb problem behavior or just keep foster children quiet, no matter the side effects.

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