SAVE OUR CHILDREN

The Miami Herald

May 9, 2001

Words cannot fully describe the sense of outrage about news that mere toddlers are being given powerful antipsychotic drugs. Shocking and disturbing come to mind. These words capture emotions that should spur Florida child-care providers to carefully examine and reform procedures for administering psychotropic drugs to children.

In a review of state health-care records, The Herald found that nearly 600 children under age 6 who receive Medicaid were given psychiatric drugs last year. The drugs, including Clozaril, Zyprexz and Risperdal, most commonly are given to adults for treatment of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Experts say that schizophrenia in children under age 6 is extremely rare; only about 1 in 40,000 schizophrenics experience the disease in childhood. So the Florida numbers are a red flag to possible overuse of the potent medications.

To its credit, the Department of Children & Families responded quickly to the crisis. The agency has assigned doctors to supervise an evaluation of children under state care who are given drugs. And in Broward, child-welfare providers are taking a second look at the children under state care and the drugs they're taking. Considering the potential harm, including risky and debilitating side-effects, the agency's response is both commendable and appropriate.

The records reviewed by The Herald were of Medicaid recipients who might be in state-supervised foster care, under the care of private doctors, or of agencies that treat children in state care. In some cases, the medications are required to treat autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity and pervasive developmental disorders. But child-care providers have no definitive data to show if use of the drugs by children is excessive or dictated by need.

The worry is that the antipsychotic drugs may be used to quiet misbehaving children in lieu of counseling or therapeutic interventions, or that they are too readily approved and administered by an unthinking bureaucracy. This newspaper's informal review of the sheer numbers of children given adult drugs is alarming. Prudence advises tightening the rules and administering more love and less drugs.