Saturday, December 03, 2011

Drugging foster kids

I posted a story about over-drugging foster kids on Nov. 22, as well as some other gripes about the local family court ordering the excessive use of psychotropic drugs for kids. This has apparently become a hot topic. Readers posted stories here, here, here, and here. Last night, ABC TV 20/20 had a show on Doctors Put Foster Children at Risk With Mind-Altering Drugs. The site says that you can watch the full episode online.

ABC said that they spent a year investigating this story.
Across America, doctors are putting foster children on powerful, mind-altering drugs at rates up to 13 times that of children in the general population. What's more, doctors are prescribing foster children drugs at doses beyond what the Food and Drug Administration has approved, sometimes in potentially dangerous combinations, according to a new report by the federal Government Accountability Office.
The show gave the impression that the problems might be solved with better shrinks or more loving foster parents. I doubt it.

I have actually looked at some of the research papers that were used to get FDA approval for some of these drugs. The evidence for their effectiveness is very thin. I would not use them for myself, or for my kids. But I would not object to parents who chose to use them to treat their kids. Parents need to have the autonomy to decide what is best. But the whole idea of courts or social service agencies forcing these drugs on kids is truly offensive. This is a conspiracy of corrupt psychiatrists and social workers who have to be doing something to justify their existence.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

George,

Are you starting to view this all as less of an issue of incompetence/do gooders, and some sort of ideology being thrust upon citizens ? Isn't it all about pure, evil greed ? If there is an ideology attached, it's merely to serve as a driver for the greed, I think.

A reader brought up "demand generation". Whether it's c.p.s., attorneys, shrinks, eval.s, child support, supevision, drugs, etc. etc., doesn't it all seem to point in the direction of demand generation to you ?

Anonymous said...

And in Santa Cruz County, Judge Heather Morse, the Family Law Court and the County Health Services Agency 'demand' that a small Asperger boy be kept on Risperdal without his approval for over 5 1/2 years!

George said...

Incompetence would not be drugging all these foster kids. There is a systematic effort to break down the American family, and put kids under the control of govt authorities.

Greed may explain the guy who writes 2700 prescriptions per year, but it does not explain all the other infrastructure that lets him get away with it.

Anonymous said...

Your story is tragic. It's good that George has highlighted it, and identified those who are responsible.

The boy is a victim of unmitigated greed. I admire how you've been doing all that you can about it.

Anonymous said...

The people who make up the infrastructure profit from the guy who writes the 2700 prescriptions. Bonuses, promotions, kickbacks, increased funding...Don't you think ?

George said...

Judge Heather Morse is on county salary. She does not get a bonus for putting the grandson of Anonymous-10:47AM on Risperdal. I say that she is ideologically in favor of non-parents making drug decisions. How else do you explain it?

Anonymous said...

I doubt that there's a correct answer, but do you think that the ideological position of slaveowners wasn't just an excuse to control and profit from their exploitation of slaves ?

I grant you that slaveowners may have "convinced" themselves that the slaves were better off.

Anonymous said...

Judge Morse has been accused of receiving bribes. Are you familiar with the Catherine Breitenstein case ?

George said...

If I were living in 1850 and trying to abolish slavery, then it would be helpful to recognize that slavery was an ideology, and not just a problem of plantation owners being too greedy.

George said...

No, I did not know about Catherine Breitenstein. Apparently she made a claim in 2005 that alleged, among other things, that Judge Morse received gifts from David Pettigrew. I don't know that that is all about, but I really doubt that bribery explains why she would force a child on Risperdal.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes reflecting on history can give you an improved perspective on current social issues, greed, ideologies, laws, and general human behavioir. I've noticed you citing other times in history.

Anonymous said...

So bribery can only explain why Morse does a lot of other types of horrible things to parents and children ?

Anonymous said...

Let's see if we got this right ?

The Dr. writing 2700 presciptions is greedy.

The 2 psychologists are ideological, greedy, and either gay or non christian.

The judge is not greedy, gay or Jewish, but is ideological.

Who is it that's just plain ideological ?

George said...

Yes, there are multiple causes to the problems in the family court and social services. I emphasize the ideology because I believe that the problems cannot be fixed until that ideology is identified and reversed.

Anonymous said...

There's always going to be Jews, Gays, feminists, etc. involved, injecting their personal values, and bias into the mix. How are you going to ever eliminate that ?

You "know" that a christian, unlike Perlmutter would have never wrote what he did nor charged you 28,000, right ?

liminate the opportunity for such gauging/greed, and by applying your reasoning, and you'll be left without these Jews and Gays and their menacing ideologies in the process, because they'll abandon the field, for alternate more lucrative positions elsewhere, I suppose, based on what you know about their tendencies.

Now, if you were to focus on eliminating the greed factor, like wth a Dr. that writes 2700 prescriptions, who subscribes to no particular ideology, but is simply greedy you affect substantial, positive change.

Now, the judges. Who installs them ? Who keeps them in power ? The attorneys ? Do you think that the attorneys are ideologically motivated ? or are they driven by greed ? If they are driven by greed as you'll probably agree, then they have powerful influence over a judge, who wants to retain their county job, and atractive state benefits/pension, etc. even if they were not receiving any bribes.

Remember commiss. Joseph ? After leaving the bench, didn't he want back on it ? Might we assume that
his efforts as some private "mediator" or whatever it was failed, maybe ? He can't procure cleints, just as the psych.s can't.

What about c.p.s. ? Ideologically driven, or is it those bonuses ?

The ideological element is inherent, and subjective, and even, natural, yet it's where you want to start versus attention being focused on the greed opportunity, which permiates either these individuals exclusiviely, or at a minimum very partially in every situation before the court.

Say you eliminate the ideology, or if you could even ever make a dent in it, anyway and not the greed. You'd still be left wth the Dr.s writing 2700 presciptions, wouldn't you ? The judges acting out of bribes or adhering to the financial interests of the lawyers, and c.p.s. being motivated by bonuses vs. losing their jobs if they didn't go for the carrot vs. the stick, a this program and others suggests.

I think most of the problems and the most critical problems could be fixed if the focus was taken off the ideological flaws which are so subjective and can't be fixed, much at all, and placed on the "greed
factors" which can be fixed, and simultaneously mitigate some of what is or is presumed to be idelogcal issues.

If you were to believe that policy/ideology is dictated by government, and government officials are elected with large contributions to campaigns, then candidates votes are influenced by lobbyists representing the fiancial interests/greed of the PAC's and donors, then govenment's ideological agenda/control etc. is a function of corporate greed, not any ideology at all.

In many ways we're agreeing on many issues and maybe stating them a little differenty, maybe ?

George said...

Physicians will always be greedy. I have no hope of changing that. I would rather attack the mindset that believes that drugging foster kids is an acceptable way of dealing with them.

Anonymous said...

you are all forgetting one of the most powerful and basic motivations in human behavior that transcends ideologies, greed etc. And that's control over others. It's intoxicating and a primary motivator for a lot of people in these fields.

Anonymous said...

Not all foster parents intent may be this but if they stand up and refuse drugs being prescribed to kids by primary care/psychiatrist, their kids will be pulled from them or seen as bad foster parents or they loose benefits. They may get silenced or may not speak due to fear.

I observed this with divorced parents(not necessarily psychotic drugs) but if you stand up (disagree) to certain procedures with doctors, you will be labelled as bad parent by health care professionals. So parent has to keep silence due to fear.

I posted this while ago. I started to have conversation with this non-profit to protect most children. They do a fantastic job bringing this issue on psychiatric medicine.

http://www.cchr.org/videos.html

Anonymous said...

I don't fault George for this, if it happens to be the case with him... I suspect that George may have never been in the position of having to do things at a job that were unethical because they had to pay rent or feed their kids, or lose their job. "Morality comes with a full belly".

I don't think George understands that greed and basic needs trumps ethics and morals.

To his credit, George isn't greedy and doesn't understand the power
of greed.

George said...

Yes, people are greedy. But we didn't try to solve the banking crisis by eliminating greed, and we won't solve the family court problems that way either.

Anonymous said...

5:49am comments "greed and basic needs trumps ethics and morals"

Well said, this is what happens. What if many of us work in family court affiliates or social services? Would you think you would be different than corrupt people? Would be one of them (corrupt) or stuck in there with fear to speak?

I met lawyers who just can not speak in public due to fear. One of the lawyers told me "Most judges are immoral and their part of this corruption in family courts" Another lawyer points how bad this courts behave. But none of this people will go in media and talk due to fear.

Majorly almost all part of the government, family courts, cps, courts, politicians are corrupt. I am sure when they were they did not have goal like this "I am going to be corrupt person".

But greed, needs, control shapes them. They all must be held publicly accountable and sent to prison or put heavy fines but they have immunities. But this is a different topic.

Anonymous said...

How did we try to solve the banking crisis by eliminating greed ? Didn't the banks receive large low interest bailout loans from the gov't ? Didn't these loans solve the banks solvency issues that threatened depositers and our economy ? Haven't banks tightened their lending crieria since ? Haven't the banks had funds to loan to businesses and homebuyers, and people needing to refinance with the lower interests now available ?

In what way was the solution to the banking crisis intended to eliminate greed ? and weren't things that it was intended to solve not helped in some ways and to some degrees ?

Anonymous said...

Reducing greed and corruption isn't always that complicated to do.

Soon, there may be a new law requiring members of congress to make thier stock trading public in real time, and this will likely drastically reduce,their greed.

Placing video cameras on police squad cars reduces police corruption.

Now, how do you go about changing people's ideologies to fit your views or opinions on what's in a child's best interest when it comes to alarm, clocks, math tests, spanking, etc ?

Eliminate the greed, and you'll eliminate the vested interests in the courts, cps, shrinks etc, being involved in the decision making and it being returned to the parents. If they don't make money being involved, they won't be involved.

George said...

Wow, one simple law about exposing stock trades, and the problem of congressman greed will be solved? Will Congress then move on to balancing the budget and solving all of their other problems? Maybe I am too cynical.

Anonymous said...

Here is yet another corruption unrelated to children. This is what when greed, corruption and drop of morals/ethics play a role. This is going lot with **doctors profession** adults/kids are prescribed with unnecessary medications/ procedures/surgeries. This is not just in US. It's world wide. Caesarians are conducted even though it is not needed but it generates 10 times revenue for doctors. Same is the case now statins such as Lipitor.

Why're are this highly educated doctors (almost 10+ years education after high school including residency to finish) doing this? Obviously greed, drop of ethics and morals, and corruption take over.

It is also a grey area to prove that those procedures/medicine are not needed. They would tell you that it is per their professional opinion.

Fear has been lost over time for them. They do not fear of wrong doing. Somehow they believe they could get away.

News wire:
Cardiologist Dr. Mark Midei faces 175 lawsuits claiming he implanted unnecessary stents

Baltimore cardiologist Dr. Mark Midei is facing a growing number of lawsuits - now 175 - after another two dozen filings alleging he implanted unnecessary stents in his patients, according to CBS Baltimore.

The patients' attorney, Jay Miller, says there are potentially many more victims. He plans to file another 45 more lawsuits next month alone, claiming Midei gave them unneeded stents - tiny devices designed to open blocked arteries.

"The fraud's the same in every one," he said. "There was a lie perpetrated against the people, 'You need a stent.' And then they'd find out they didn't need a stent," Miller told the station.

Vicki Mars is one of the 150 original patients suing Midei and St. Joseph Medical Center where the surgeries were done. Mars says Midei told her that her arteries were blocked. "Dr. Midei said it was 90 percent," she said. "And after they reviewed everything, it was 10 percent."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57335891-504083/cardiologist-dr-mark-midei-faces-175-lawsuits-claiming-he-implanted-unnecessary-stents/?tag=cbsnewsTwoColLowerPromoArea;fd.morenews

Anonymous said...

I also remember I took one of my children who has faced twice/thrice ear infection during that year to ENT specialist. Doctor was in his early 70's, doctor wanted to operate and put tubes in year for my child. I was so surprised why would someone want to put tubes in year for two times ear infection.

I took my child to some other doctor. They said, "No, No, NO!!!" for tubes in ear.

I believe in this case this old (70+) doctor is a corrupt person who wanted to get insurance money to operate on children ear instead of giving antibiotic which may be needed. I am sure 70+ doctor exploited children for this procedure.

As these people grow in to positions, greed and corruption take over.

My child was fine later. Never needed or even gotten any more ear infections. Sometimes children under 6-7 years may face ear infections.

No one (mostly) start their career (lawyers, social workers, doctors by saying "They want to be corrupt". But greed and incentives shapes them.

Anonymous said...

This is not what was written

Wow, one simple law about exposing stock trades, and the problem of congressman greed will be solved?


This is what was written

Soon, there may be a new law requiring members of congress to make thier stock trading public in real time, and this will likely drastically reduce,their greed.


Wow see the difference ?

John Sowerby said...

The psychiatric manufacturing of madness is nothing new what is new is the stepping up the pace in compliance to the bribery of Drog monopelies Curently in West Australia legislation is drawn up to deny parents the right say no to the psyhcotrpic prescriptions by Psych's this applies also to prescibed ECT and lobotomies etc.Parents will have no say.

John Sowerby said...

Psych's and Big Pharma Pose the biggest threat to mankind since they embarked on taking away by legislation the protective rights of the parents.Legislation is due to be placed before parliament in West Autraliia to give the right to accept all Psychiatric treatment to 12 year old children. How grossly insane is that and how damaging to the family and Society.John