I'm not saying that the psych doc responsible for the dx and rx of rebecca wasn't hugely at fault. But somehow I don't have much sympathy for parents who had all their kids on psych meds and who overdosed their own child, giving her dosages that she was not even prescribed. They really should be held accountable for this, not just get away with suing the doctor.

my personal feeling is that her parents killed her. they were medicating her into oblivion to keep her quiet. the doctors of course are also at fault and are flaming morons, but i believe her parents murdered her.

Well I guess I'm not sure the Rileys should be held in jail without bail but I have read they are both pretty heavily medicated themselves and I'm not sure they were exactly following doctor's instructions when they were giving meds to Rebecca. As bad as the doctor's instructions probably were I'm guessing her parents made it even worse. I'm not saying they were deliberately trying to harm her but they were incredibly stupid and selfish, trying to preserve their own peace and quiet rather than help Rebecca. That's my read on it. I might be wrong.

Bi-polar at 28 months old?? You've got to be kidding me. However, whats more disturbing is the fact that this child's parents took the poor baby to a psych doctor at 28 months old to be evaluated for bi-polar disorder and ADHD. So many people these days are too quick to diagnose a bored and rammy child as ADHD. Whatever happened to just accepting "the terrible twos". The story is just sad all around.

My question is why the parents had a psychiatrist evaluate her when she was 28 months old. Even if my child's behavior was bizarre, I'd probably be consulting a pediatrician at that age. Unless the pediatrician recommended a psychiatrist. Even then I'd be skeptical to hand my child psych meds.

I hope justice is served, because it is the prescribing doctor who gave those medications to Rebecca, and to diagnose a 2 year old with bipolar or anything else and be placed on those drugs is negligent in duty, and was reckless endangerment of a little girl's life; which killed her. To keep the parents in jail due to being a threat to society is the most enraging and absurd thing I have ever heard of, we talk about civil liberties for psych patients; where the hell are the rights of these parents? regardless of people's opinion of who was in charge of Rebecca and who dosed out the medications etc., how they can be a danger to the public is beyond me.

I hope Rebecca's case enlightens the dangers of these medications being used in young children, because not one of the medications Rebecca was taking is approved for children, not one.

The PBS Frontline program "The Medicated Child" should be viewed [available online]as a reminder.

Just my opinion.

Hmm. Rebecca's parents aren't the ones suing, it is her estate and if there is a settlement it will go to her surviving siblings, not her parents.

This isn't black and white, either the psychiatrist or the parents, all are at fault. The father was not supposed to even be in the home, he was under orders to stay out due to abuse charges against his children and the mother let him come and stay home. Also the brother says he told his parents to take his sister to the doctor before she died and they did not. Negligence for sure. These parents were involved with child protective services before any of this happened, now their daughter is dead and their other children are in foster care. I would add Child Protective Services as a 3rd party at fault but one never wins that one. They should have known how dangerous her situation was.

I got a piece from someone today who suggested the parents' motivation was to get her, and perhaps the other kids, on SSI disability. It has become, for low income families, a replacement for what used to be Welfare. I remember when the program initially started up hearing of parents in Philadelphia coaching their kids on how to act ADD to be deemed eligible for the payments. Terrible, but people who are poor do get desperate in some very tragic ways.

It's amazing to me that people still talk about the Rileys as if they were not known child abusers. As child abusers there's nothing unusual about what the Rileys did to Rebecca; and comparing them to normal people is apple/orange-like. Parents who abuse their kids are into homicide.