Miami Herald
FLORIDA LEGISLATURE
Regulations sought for foster kids prescribed psychiatric drugs
March 2, 2010

In the wake of a Broward child’s death, state lawmakers will consider a bill designed to make it harder for child welfare workers to use mental health drugs to control foster kids.

BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER

Florida lawmakers will once again consider a measure to rein in the use of psychiatric drugs among foster children in the wake of last year’s death of a 7-year-old Broward boy who was on a cocktail of mood-altering drugs.

A new bill, filed Friday by state Sen. Ronda Storms, a Brandon Republican, would, among other things, require that foster children assent¹ to the use of psychiatric drugs. The proposed law would require caseworkers to explain to children, in a manner they can understand, why the drugs are necessary and what risks they carry.

“It’s a huge step forward for the children of Florida,” Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of Florida’s Children First, said of the provision. “It’s integral to effective treatment for children to be involved at a developmentally appropriate level.”

The requirement that foster kids be involved in their own treatment was one of scores of recommendations made by a child welfare work group of administrators from the Department of Children & Families, doctors and children’s advocates who studied the death of Gabriel Myers last April.

Gabriel, originally from Ohio, entered state care in June 2008 when his mother was found slumped in her car in a restaurant parking lot — with a narcotic pill bottles surrounding her. Gabriel hanged himself on April 16, using a retractable shower cord as a noose.

In the aftermath, The Miami Herald reported that the boy had been prescribed several anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs in the months before his death. Most of the drugs have not been approved for use with children, and some have been linked to serious side effects, including an increased risk of suicide.

While Storm’s bill tracks most of the work group’s findings, it differs in some respects. One major difference: The work group wanted each child being administered psychotropic drugs to have the benefit of a lawyer at all court appearances.

Storms’ bill requires the state to appoint guardians ad litem², or volunteer lay guardians. Storms said the guardians are qualified for the role because they already are involved in the children’s lives.

Rosenberg, who was a member of the Gabriel Myers Work Group, said “the work group concluded that attorneys are best suited to protect children’s interests when prescribing medication,” she said.

The bill would also:

· Prohibit children in state care from being involved in clinical trials designed to determine the safety or efficacy of drugs that have not yet been approved by the FDA.

· Require an independent medication review before psychiatric drugs can be administered to children 10 or younger.

· Require mental-health professionals to prepare an overall treatment plan, including the use of counseling and therapy, when children are prescribed psychiatric drugs.

“We want to give a preference to behavioral therapy,” said Storms, the bill’s sponsor. “We’re not going to just drug them through their childhood and adolescence.”

Storms said she thought the prescribing of such drugs has become a crutch for therapists, who are eschewing traditional couch chats with children. Research shows, she said, that some doctors are writing one prescription for a child every three minutes.

DCF administrators have supported the legislation, which marks the second time this decade where lawmakers have sought to crack down on mental-health drug use among kids in state care.

“With young kids, we really need to err on the side of caution,” said DCF Secretary George Sheldon, who has supported both the work group and the legislation.

State Sen. Nan Rich, a Sunrise Democrat who is vice chair of the children’s committee, said the bill will fail if lawmakers decline to set aside enough money to pay for it — especially the provision that requires guardians for foster kids who are prescribed drugs.

1. assent definition: to agree to something, especially after thoughtful consideration.
2. ad litem definition: a term used in law to refer to a party appointed by a court to act in a lawsuit on behalf of another party—for instance, a child or an incapacitated adult—who is deemed incapable of representing him or herself.

Foster kids, prescriptions — finally alarm

October 10, 2009

By FRED GRIMM

Gabriel Myers finally matters.
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.

Gabriel

State Senator, Tony Hill

“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.

Committee Chair, Senator Rhonda Storms

UNACCEPTABLE
Committee Chair Rhonda Storms, a Valrico Republican, told reporters, “I cannot accept or believe that a little child cannot be reached except by drugging him and drugging him and drugging him.”
The task force catalogued drug regimens for foster children that the FDA never approved for children. It described a system blighted by haphazard oversight. No one within the child-care bureaucracy took direct responsibility for the child’s complex psychological needs. No one was looking out for a profoundly troubled child’s best interest.

 
Hill railed that Gabriel’s foster parents, schools, case workers and doctors hardly spoke to one another as his problems escalated. “No communication,” he said, his voice rising in anger. 

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Florida Times Union

Florida foster kids slower to get medications now

The new rules come after a 7-year-old boy hanged himself in April.

Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009

By Brandon Larrabee

TALLAHASSEE – New practices after the death of a 7-year-old foster child who took psychiatric medications have slowed the flow of the drugs to children in state care, local health-care providers say. Whether those changes are for the better is a contentious question.

The renewed attention to so-called psychotropic drugs comes in the wake of the hanging death of Gabriel Myers of Fort Lauderdale, whose apparent suicide in April led to an ongoing examination by the Department of Children & Families. His death sparked promises by lawmakers to strengthen laws aimed at preventing the overuse of the medications by foster children.

 
It is the latest chapter in an international battle over how and whether the drugs should be used, with medical professionals stressing they are largely safe for older patients but advocacy groups pointing to suicides, particularly among children, as a reason use of the medications should be curtailed. Those fears have prompted the FDA to put a “black box” warning on the drugs.  

Gabriel Myers (2007)