Sadly, I can see how unwanted kids end up dumped into the foster care system and drugged into oblivion (I've read that a frightening percentage of foster kids are on psych meds). More curious to me, however, are the parents who purport to love their children yet are willing to put them on Ritalin or whatever, based on nothing more than a shrink filling out a checklist. Do these parents have shit for brains?

That is a shocking article, and the graph runs right along with the year[1999]private insurance paid for Zyprexa for my daughter[and caused personal financial losses of enormous magnitude] until she became a legal adult, gaining Medicaid, in 2006. The rise in prescriptions is alarming to say the least, and if one thinks about how many kids were being medicated via Blue Cross, etc. these stats will look worse. It was not uncommon, it was VERY common for my daughter to see several classmates in the waiting room at her private practice psychiatrist office. Once she entered a private hospital she was one of 15 or so kids who had family visit because the rest were foster kids.The foster kids would always comment to me they wished they had a family to go home to, and not the RTC they were on the list to be sent to, loaded up on antipsychotics.Zyprexa was the top drug being dispenses there in 1999. It was quite alarming to see so many 5th grade age kids on 15mg of Zyprexa, and most were boys dx with ADHD.
Looks like Pharma did a good job transitioning the antipsychotics into a "wonder drug" where one size fits all, age and dx not considered. The private hospital I speak of here was also paid by the state, .13 cents on the dollar for treating kids and teens, and one MHP[mental health professional who evals for admit]asked me to file a complaint in his words:"Because I am sick and tired of sending kids to that place, it needs to be shut down and the funding removed."
This article is a tip of the iceberg, and it's only going to get worse.Sadly, I have crossed paths with some of those now 18-20 year old foster kids from that original hospital inside locked down psych wards. I fear those "kids" will never get out of that system, and when I spoke with 3 psychiatrists in a group meeting about changing laws for teens to remain under age 21 umbrella in the state teen facility vs.state hospital; one doctor said [about me wanting the law changed to keep kids under 21 out of the state locked down institution for safety reasons]"Don't forget about the foster kids." It weighed heavy on my shoulders, there is much need for reform in this country and it needs to start with adding ethical distribution of psych meds to children, based on doctors being fed Pharma-funded information that is biased toward a product.
The outcome of Pharma being such a lucrative and vicious group of corporations based on stock market earnings, sadly is the loss of life and ruined childhoods, ultimately possibly ruined adulthoods as a result.
This is a crisis.
"Do these parents have shit for brains?"
Some do, some do not.
What happened to me for example, was I was told I had shit for brains when I questioned the psychiatrist about the need for medication. I was threatened "if she goes off of these meds she will kill herself by age 18, how will you live with yourself?"
Back then the CABF bp kids org [now find some old members at "starfish" forums] promoted medicating kids and backed up what parents were hearing from private practice psychiatrists, who were themselves "trained in thought" by the team Philip calls here: The Harvard Mafia.

There was an article in The Oregonian today that gave me hope that treatment of children with serious psychiatric disorders is possible. The focus of the article isn't psychiatric drugs, but rather a state program for treatment of the type of behavior discussed in the St. Petersberg Times article that seems to be untreatable except with powerful drugs. Here's a link:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1185857767113320.xml&coll=7
Sally

I'm sorry, Stephany. My post was insensitive. I'm fully aware that parents can be coerced into drugging their kids. I read of a horrific situation where the state threatened to apprehend the kid if he wasn't put on Ritalin.

That wasn't the situation I was referring to, though. I was thinking more about the daydreaming kid that can't pay attention in school. The parents take him to the doctor and it's determined that he has a brain disorder and "needs" drugs. I thank God that ADHD hadn't been invented when I was little. I would have been caught in that net, for sure.

Francesca,
Our voices, in my opinion are equal.
:)

Sally, Thank you for this link.

State care, minus the institution.

Cool.

Just to clarify, the Sally that posted the article about The Oregonian is a different Sally. I saw the article. As the daughter of abusive parents, at 14 I began researching ways I could get into foster care. Never was able to do it, and I've heard from the majority of folks I know who grew up in foster care that foster care is at times as bad as staying with the abusive parent, and I know all parents are not abusive but for those of us who grew up in abusive homes, this is a sad tale.

Sally@ 4:24AM
That's really sad to hear that you attempted to find another place to live that could possibly have kept you safe, I'm sorry to hear that.
The foster kids [teens]I met inside a psych ward for the most part complained of being bounced from one home to the next, never really receiving a home with a loving family they wanted so desperately. The saddest part of knowing those teens, was that from there they were being sent to Residential Treatment Care to reside. Then of course at age 18, they are free to go, with no family, no way of making it in this world[sometimes, not always].All of it is such a sad story all around.
When I was a teenager I had a friend at church who cried she was always sent from one home to the next, and one family would "send her back" when she "acted out", [like all teens do at some point]so my mom brought her home. She lived with us until she was ready to go "back into the system" that she chose to do herself. Her mother was in prison, and we took her to visit her mom. Some foster parents wouldn't have anything to do with a kid who had a mom in prison.
This girl would come back so happy, her mom would do her nails and brush her hair. She represents in my opinion what we all want in life: as kids and adults: to be loved.

What is the world coming to, instead of protecting our kids we just leave them to the mercy of lunatic adults who even sell drugs to this venerable kids what a shame.
..........................................
sara lee

Florida Drug Rehab
floridadrugrehab.com

I used to joke with my friends that my parents, naive, repressed middle aged Alabamans, were devastated when I had the nerve to be born naked and rushed me to a shrink hooping and hollering that they had an exhibitionist baby. Not so funny these days with bored, unfullfilled parents leering at their children watching for the kids to do something crazy.

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Florida Drug Rehab