Drugging Foster Children

Baby S. is a Los Angeles County BABY who was put on a cocktail of psychtropic drugs including Phenobarbital, Xanax, Prozac, chloral hydrate and other drugs. The public found out about this sick travesty because a lawsuit was filed on her behalf when she was still a preschooler, already in 24-hour care for life. A four million dollar settlement was granted for her special care.

The foster mother was blamed for the drugging of this child. This woman, Lynette Harms of Carpinteria, was herself described in the LA Times as a drug addict. She had adopted Baby S's older sister and taken care of Baby S. since she was six months old, in 1996. Where was the CPS caseworker who should have overseen the child's care? Did that person ever get punished/fired/demoted? Perhaps we'll never know. This incident has become a footnote. Maybe I'm the only person who still remembers, who often thinks about Baby S. and the insane foster care system that allows the drugging of young children. This took place over ten years ago.

At the time the newspaper reported:

"In 1999, the comatose girl was taken to Santa Barbara Hospital, where she was found to have brain and liver damage.

The lawsuit, alleging negligence, said some of the five social workers on the case failed to make legally required visits to the home. None were made between April and October 1998, according to a claims board document.

Harms was convicted of shoplifting in Santa Maria in 1998 and her foster license was revoked the next year, the lawsuit said.

That article is still online: Baby S. - $4 million settlement proposed for child with brain damage

Your Tax Dollars At Work



Please say a prayer for Baby S. and all the many thousands of other foster children who are being forced to take psychotropic drugs.

This story has just begun... please read through the page to learn about other children whose lives were interfered with because of forced drugging during foster care.

This is a bizarre story of psychiatry and "therapy" gone insane.

Candace was taken from her mother at the age of five because one day her mom couldn't find a way to get a ride home from Head Start for Candace. ONE DAY, no ride. Rather than finding a way to help, the Head Start worker called CPS. But why was Candace in Head Start in the first place? Because this had been ordered after an earlier contact with CPS.

Candace, whose mother's only crime was not to have a ride to pick her up, was placed in foster care. Parental rights were terminated and a few years later Candace was adopted out to a childless nurse-practitioner, Jeane Newmaker, in North Carolina. But Candace wasn't happy. She was placed on numerous drug therapies. Jeane continued to look for answers and took Candace to "rebirthing therapy" in Colorado. This was popular with foster and adoptive parents because they could pretend the child was being born to them.

During the course of the rebirthing Candace was wrapped in blankets and pushed against by the therapists. This was to simulate a birth canal. She was supposed to fight her way out. Instead she told them she couldn't breathe and that she was dying. The therapist said, "Go ahead!" And she did.

Most people who endure rebirthing therapy don't die. It is thought that Candace did because of the many drugs she was prescribed to take at that time.

Candace died on April 20, 2000. This is a date I can't forget because it was my daughter's 11th birthday, and because Candace was born only a few months after my daughter, in 1989. Ironically, it happened during April which is Child Abuse Prevention Month. The "protectors" of children protected another child to death.

I knew about Candace's death ever since this happened and was reported in Denver's Rocky Mountain News. All these years later, they are still carrying the story on their website: HER NAME WAS CANDACE. This is an exceptionally well-written series of news articles.

In case you don't have time to read the entire series of articles, at least consider this section that is germane to the topic of this lens:

'Prosecutors said the powerful drugs Candace took to control her moods and behavior were changed repeatedly in the two weeks before her death.

Just before arriving in Evergreen, Jeane took her off Dexadrine, the amphetamine being used to combat attention deficit disorder.

Alston stopped Candace's use of Effexor, an anti-depressant, investigators said.

Candace's dosage of Risperdal, a calming medication, was doubled on April 11. Jeane told investigators the anti-psychotic drug was to counteract Candace's history of assaultive behavior - again without providing specifics.

Although Alston had stopped the Effexor, Candace began taking it again the day before she died because her therapy hadn't progressed as they'd hoped, Jeane told investigators.

The drugs were dispensed to Candace each day by Brita St. Clair, Watkins' office manager, who hosted the Newmakers during their stay in Evergreen. St. Clair was engaged to Jack McDaniel, whom Candace was told to call "Daddy Jack."

McDaniel, a high school graduate with no medical or therapy training, was to be paid $700 to write a report about Candace's two weeks with Watkins and Julie Ponder, a California therapist.

Watkins later told investigators that the drugged Candace had "a look in her eye like nobody's home."

Prosecutor Steve Jensen charged that the therapists modified Candace's drug intake in order to manipulate her.

"They went so far as to control even the mental state of the child," Jensen said during a hearing in August.'

WHY?

Children are being drugged in foster care (and after adoptions) because there's a lot of money that exchanges hands. All therapies for foster children are reimbursed by the Federal Social Security Fund. That's money for doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists. That's money that comes into the county to enrich specific, chosen "service providers" who can be relatives of CPS workers and managers.

Not only that, but the PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY must love this! They're selling lots of pills! They're getting children hooked on drugs! They're able to use foster children who are separated from the parents who love them for human guinea pigs. Don't believe me? Further down on this page there's a video testimony from ASHLEY, a young woman who was taking an experimental drug while in foster care. Listen to her... she will tell you what happens to foster children.

But there's more. You see, foster and adoptive "parents" get paid EXTRA for housing "special needs" children. Children that were relatively "normal" when with their natural parents are classified as "special needs" in foster care as soon as they're prescribed psychotropic drugs. That's major money in the hands of their caretakers! Of course these foster parents are lining the kids up for their psychotropic drugs. Money, money, money!

Once a child is ADOPTED from foster care, there's substantial monthly payments for "special needs" children. This is the ADOPTION SUBSIDY program. These adopters are often looked on by society as benevolent, loving people who'll take in a dozen handicapped or "special needs" children. What the public doesn't know is that they're raking in the dough. Ten thousand dollars a month? Who wouldn't want that? Sometimes these children are seriously abused in these "child collecting" situations.

I've been collecting news stories about "child collecting" foster-adopters for years. Here's one from Tennessee, about a couple, Tom and Debra Schmitz, who collected 18 children. Their story made the news when they were accused of making some of the children go into the backyard to "dig their own graves" as a punishment.

Here's part of an interview with another child collecting foster parent (Karen Tolin) about Tom and Debra Schmitz:

Parenting difficulties such as this eventually prompted Karen and her husband, Timothy, to make a tough decision nearly 18 months ago - they would send Erin, who has special mental needs, from their Michigan home to live with Tom and Debra Schmitz in Tennessee.

Now age 9, Erin was one of the 18 children the Tennessee Department of Children Services removed from the Schmitz home in June because of possible abuse. The case, however, hasn't swayed Karen Tolin's belief that Tom and Debra Schmitz are good parents. She plans to be in a Gibson County courtroom Thursday to support the couple's effort to visit the children.

''It's so sad,'' Tolin said in a phone interview from her Michigan home. ''My heart just goes out to Tom and Deb. Sooner or later, the truth is going to come out.''

In Tennessee, the couple is accused of beating children, locking them in a metal cage and forcing them to spend hours in a dark cellar. They also are accused of forcing children to dig their own graves and telling them they could be killed and buried in the back yard and no one would care.

Abuse allegations also were lodged against the couple in November 2000 when they lived in Wisconsin. An extensive investigation, however, ended with no charges being filed. Tolin believes those accusations were from ''disgruntled family members who got mad.''

It was just several months earlier in 2000 that the Schmitzes received a Family of Distinction Award from the Green Bay-De Pere YWCA in March 2000 for their parenting skills. And it is during this Wisconsin period when the Tolins and Schmitzes strengthened a friendship.

Tolin recently spoke by phone with The Jackson Sun from her Michigan home. She also corresponded by e-mail.

She is disturbed by the misdemeanor criminal charges against the couple in Tennessee and said some of the alleged abuses are simply parenting techniques required for children with special needs.

(By Tonya Smith-King, published in 2004 in at Jacksonsun.com)

Want to read more about this family?
Tennessee: Child collectors force foster kids to dig their own graves
Tennessee: Schmitz' daughter talks about how her parents abused foster children
Tennessee: Foster-adopter backs the Schmitz' abuse of children?

I've known about Florida's drugging of foster children for years. Why did it take the SUICIDE of a SEVEN-YEAR-OLD to convince Florida legislators to take action? WHY?

In 2001 a news article was published in Florida's Miami Herald about the problem. I linked to it (from my site, FightCPS) then, writing, "Advocates alarmed by drugs used for kids - May 7, 2001 - why are 600 Florida Medicaid-recipient children under age six prescribed antipsychotic drugs intended for adult schizophrenics? This 'chemical restraint' of foster children is happening in California and other states too." This news article is no longer online. Here's my note.

Then in 2004 I posted an article, also from Florida: Foster children harmed by psychotropic drug Risperdal. Did anything change then?

No, apparently not!

So now that Gabriel took his own life while drugged, lawmakers are considering changes:

Florida lawmakers pledge action on psychiatric drugs in foster care - The apparent suicide of a 7-year-old boy in April raised an alarm.

Do I think they'll really change things so that foster children are not harmed by drugs?

Honestly.... no. I don't believe anything will change. This foster care / CPS / child snatching fiasco our country has brainwashed everyone to think is so necessary is controlled by the BIG MONEY industrial complex that is ruining children and everything else they can get their hands on in this country... all in the name of USING the SHEEPLE for generating massive amounts of money.

God help the children, the young parents who have no idea how to defend themselves in court, and every other innocent person in this land!

In Memory of Children Who Died in State Custody

I've been involved in the family rights movement since 1989, first by experiencing a false accusation, then by trying to help other families and writing a series of news articles to expose the system, then by helping people through a computer bulletin board system for five years, and finally by opening this website to make family rights information available to anyone who needs it.

Fighting Child Protective Services False Accusations