Dead Wrong: How Psychiatric Drugs Can Kill Your Child Page #5

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My heart is with you and your family

that you had to experience this,

because no one is really listening to

any type of alternative

conversation regarding this.

It seems that foster children are

much more likely to be medicated

than, say, other children. Why is that?

Several reasons:
the main reason being

is, "We don't have time to deal with you."

That's my take on it. "So, what we'll do

is shut you up and we'll shut you down."

That's basically it.

Most of the kids that are placed by the

Department of Children and Family Services,

they're there because they were removed

from their homes because of abuse,

whether it be emotional abuse, physical

abuse, sexual abuse, a combination thereof.

It doesn't seem to occur to the

system that this kid is scared.

This kid, if they are a victim

already of abuse of some form,

that they already are traumatized.

And so, many of the kids

are immediately in some cases

referred to the local psychologist

and diagnosed with something

and then as a consequence

then the drugs are recommended.

What I have mentioned

to some people before

is that I have been in homes where I saw

the kids' files piled up in a worker's arms,

the files taken to the local psychiatrist,

the psychiatrist write a diagnosis,

write prescriptions and they've

never even seen the child.

Based on what they've read in the file.

Based on absolutely nothing, because

there was nothing but the manager's

or whomever case worker's word

that this kid is acting out.

So we don't even really sometimes

have anything in writing other than,

"They are not cooperating with the

program. They are crying too much at night."

"They refuse to go to school in the

morning," and that sort of thing,

just verbal information, not even any notes

that the psychiatrist can actually follow.

What type of diagnosis are they

giving? Are they calling them ADHD?

Well, always ADHD. Everybody is

ADHD, that's the beginning one.

And then bipolar. And

then manic-depressive.

For foster kids, it's

disastrous because many of them,

they're bouncing from home to home,

school to school, and they're not learning.

And so, of course, they're

learning-disordered.

And all of them are emotionally

disturbed. And all of them are ADHD.

And I would probably say

in Los Angeles County alone,

we have probably about

50,000 kids in the system.

- And I would be willing to say...

- In the foster care system?

Yes, in Los Angeles County alone.

We're not talking Orange County,

any of the counties up north...

What percentage of those

do you think are on drugs?

I would be willing to say

from experience, well over,

somewhere between 50

percent and 75 percent.

That's astounding.

Thank you so much for everything.

Our children came from loving homes. And

we've still experienced these problems,

but as far as foster care children go,

they've all had issues and reasons that

they've been taken from their homes.

And I understand that they

are automatically put on drugs.

Certainly they have to go

through psychiatric evaluations.

So, I know you have

experience with that.

Right, yeah, actually, I

remember seeing a study that

children in foster care are three times

more likely to be on a psychiatric medication

than other children

who were on Medicaid.

The foster parents don't

know. They don't know.

When you go into the foster classes,

they're told that medication is the answer.

"When your child is having

these issues, get him in."

"Get him in," those are the exact words,

"Get him in fast, so that you can

get their medication adjusted."

And then the issues continue or

the child just kind of goes numb.

- Or the children die.

- Or the children die.

When I got my little boy, he was on eight

50-milligram pills a day of Seroquel,

the antipsychotic, which for a child

under 50 pounds is really incredible.

That was on top of his ADHD medication.

He was so drugged and so violent,

I was actually afraid of him

and we would hide our knives

at night, our kitchen knives,

when we'd go to bed as a

family, because we were afraid

that he would get up in

the night and harm someone.

He became so bad that he actually

in one of his foster homes

slaughtered their family

pets with a kitchen knife.

The foster mother came

home and she sees this

and she thought a burglar

had gotten into the house.

She was just distraught, "Oh my

gosh, who could have done this?"

It never even crossed her mind

that the preschooler did it.

And she figured it out that it was him.

He had gotten so violent on these medications

that he had killed her little family pets.

It was decided that he should

go to the state hospital.

And I left there and I

decided that I would try.

They said I had two

weeks to turn him around.

And then the state hospital was

still there if I couldn't do anything.

And so, I brought him into my home and the

first thing we did is tons of nutrition,

food in its most natural form, tons

of raw food, tons of whole grains.

That's what we did,

lots of real nutrition

and then we started taking

him off of his medications.

And he turned around so much

that I became known in the case

worker's office as the miracle worker.

He just made such a turnaround

and today, he's just incredible.

He skipped a grade and he still

tops out, you know, nationally,

he tests out so high, even

the grade that he's in.

He plays a couple instruments.

He's fabulous at school.

This is an exceptional child and...

And he's not showing violence toward

his sister or your family pets or?

Oh, no, oh, no. He's very

sweet with all of our pets.

We have five dogs, three

cats, and he's wonderful.

And it's just incredible to me

how many children out there are in

his exact shoes and will never...

And there aren't enough

people like you to, to care.

- No, well... - And the doctor

can just blame it on trauma.

And, or you know, if a child

commits suicide, so often it's just,

"We didn't get to them soon enough."

That's, that's what it is.

"We didn't get to them soon enough."

Because that, that takes the

blame off of them completely.

Or like my son's psychiatrist

said when her patient shot himself,

"Where'd he get a gun?"

No, looking introspectively,

"Where'd he get the will?"

So, it's just "somebody else's fault," it's

never "the medications that I prescribed."

Or, like "it was an everyday occurrence"

and I was just sitting there flabbergasted

and thinking to myself when she said,

when she was finally... had said that he

was okay to come off all his medications,

and with his Seroquel, she said,

"Wow, I am just so glad to see

that he can still imagine and play"

"because so many children who are on

this medication for any length of time"

"lose that ability to play anymore."

And I was just shocked and thought,

"How do you sleep at night?"

I can't imagine taking somebody's

creative ability from them.

What could possibly be worse

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