Efforts to protect children in foster care from being inappropriately medicated with powerful antipsychotic drugs got a big boost forward on Tuesday, when California Gov. Jerry Brown signed three bills into law designed to reform prescribing.
Overprescribing of psychiatric meds for foster youth is a persistent problem nationwide, with children given the drugs at double or triple the rate of those not in foster care.
In 2011, the federal Government Accounting Office foundnearly 1 in 4 children in foster care was taking psychotropic medications, which include antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers and stimulants.
Hundreds of children were found to be taking five or more psychotropic medications at a time, and thousands were prescribed doses that exceeded FDA-approved guidelines. According to the report, monitoring programs fell short of guidelines established by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Many of the medications have side effects that include lethargy, weight gain, diabetes and tremors.
[For more of this story, written by Elaine Korry, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...otics-in-foster-care]
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