antipsychotic drugs for normal children

St. Petersburg Times The 'atypical' dilemma Skyrocketing numbers of kids are prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs. Is it safe? Nobody knows. By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer Published July 29, 2007

[[[[[[[[FB: Saying of the prescribing of antipsychotic drugs: “Is it safe? Nobody knows” is surely not the fact of the matter. Those who have orchestrated the “skyrocketing” prescriptions of these drugs know, as they do so, they are dreadful brain body poisons—nothing but. I say “nothing but” because there is no defined disease = disorder = physical abnormality (gross, microscopic of chemical) of the brain or body that any antipsychotic drug targets (as insulin targets high blood glucose in diabetes; chemotherapy the fastest-growing malignant cells in cancer). And yet the brain and body damages and dysfunctions these drugs cause are legion and are fully documented in the medical literature and in textbooks. They are prescribed not because they cure anything—they do not--but because millions and billions of dollars are reaped each year by the psychiatric-medical/pharmaceutical/government drug cartel—no different than the phony, contrived, ADHD epidemic, only more damaging, more evil. ]]]]]]]]]]]

More and more, parents at wit's end are begging doctors to help them calm their aggressive children or control their kids with ADHD. More and more, doctors are prescribing powerful antipsychotic drugs.

[[[[[[[[[[FB: And who has so strategically planted the notion that parents at “wit’s end” with troubled, troublesome children, the result of nothing more than their own parental failings should be given “disease” labels and drugs—now the most hideous drugs of all, those of the psychiatric gulags of Soviet Russia, the antipsychotics. Wake up. It is fast growing to late. Put your child one there drugs and they are medically/physically normal no more. ]]]]]]]]]

In the past seven years, the number of Florida children prescribed such drugs has increased some 250 percent. Last year, more than 18,000 state kids on Medicaid were given prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs.

[[[[[Targeted by for-profit psychiatry, pediatrics, medicine, because they have no defenders—because they can be drugs, because they can be made patients-in-perpetuity, financially sound, one might say, even if it is just Medicaid. ]]]]]]]]]]

Even children as young as 3 years old. Last year, 1,100 Medicaid children under 6 were prescribed antipsychotics, a practice so risky that state regulators say it should be used only in extreme cases.

[[[[[[[[Knowing what I, a neurologist/child neurologist knows of this group of drugs and of there potential only to injure and kill, it should be a chargeable crime for any physician to give such medications to any minor. ]]]]]]]]]]

These numbers are just for children on fee-for-service Medicaid, generally the poor and disabled. Thousands more kids on private insurance are also on antipsychotics.

Almost entirely driving this spiraling trend is the rise of a class of antipsychotic drugs called atypicals. These drugs emerged in the 1990s and replaced the older, "typical" antipsychotics like Haldol or Thorazine, which are often associated with Parkinson-like shakes.

[[[[[[[[[FB: There is no conclusive evidence that the newer, “atypicals” are any less likely to induce Parkinson’s disease or other dose-related or fixed-permanent, more or less bizarre, ghastly, involuntary movement disorders. Think of it—actually inducing, causing, producing, Parkinson’s disease in a 3 year old, a 9 or 10 year old, or of permanent, irreversible writhing twitching or contorting sometimes so severe that the victim cannot sit or stand, sometimes so severe that exhaustion to the point of death is the result. This is what organized psychiatry has orchestrated—on purpose, for profit for itself and others—their regular partners, the rest of the once-moral medical profession that would not have allowed itself to be an accomplice, that would not have stood by and witnessed such a crime and have stood silent. Again this is a bald-faced, Nazi-dimensioned crime, that of giving any drugs of this group to children, surely rendering them brain and body abnormal]]]]]]]]]

The atypicals were developed to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in adults. But once on the market, doctors are free to prescribe them to children, and for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

[[[[[FB: The FDA has long been an accomplice, a fellow criminal in the overall psychiatric victimization of children and of normals of all ages in our country. ]]]]]]]]]

There is almost no research on the long-term effects of such powerful medications on the developing brains of children. The more that researchers learn, the less comfortable many are becoming with atypicals.

[[[[[[[FB: Enough is known by all in medicine to know that in doing this they commit a pure, hideous crime against humanity. Every medical organization—AMA, APA, AAN, CNS, AAP, AAFP, and every health care agency that fails to condemn this is to be considered an accomplice. I belong to the AAN—American Academy of Neurology, and CNS—Child Neurology Society. Both should be asked about this budding, burgeoning criminal activity.]]]]]]]]]]]]

Initially billed as wonder drugs with few significant side effects, evidence is mounting that they can cause rapid weight gain, diabetes, even death.

[[[[[[[[[[[[FB: These, health threatening, rapid, grotesque weight gain, diabetes, and death are common, everyday consequences of the use of these drugs, there can be no claims of turning a blind eye.]]]]]]]]]

They're also expensive. On average last year, it cost Medicaid nearly $1,800 for each child on atypical antipsychotics. In the last seven years, the cost to taxpayers for atypical antipsychotics prescribed to children in Florida jumped nearly 500 percent, from $4.7-million to $27.5-million. Medicaid and insurance companies have fed the problem, encouraging the use of psychiatric drugs as they reimburse less and less for labor-intensive psychotherapy and occupational therapy.

[[[[[[[[FB: Psychiatrists, pediatricians, neurologists, GPs, FPs., legislators, state and federal, insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry--all are accomplices.]]]]]]]]]]]

Another factor: Doctors have been influenced by pharmaceutical companies, which have aggressively marketed atypicals.

[[[[[[FB: Physicians cannot use this in the least as a cop-out. They know that is pharma spin and influence and what is the right and scientific thing to do. ]]]]]]]]]

Whatever the reasons for the soaring use of psychiatric drugs in children, things have gotten out of whack, according to Dr. Ronald Brown. Last year he headed an American Psychological Association committee that looked into the issue. "The bottom line is that the use of psychiatric medications far exceeds the evidence of safety and effectiveness," Brown said. "What people need to do is what's in the best interest of children instead of what's in the best interest of people's pocketbooks. But children don't vote."

[[[[[[Even the vast majority of psychologists now back biological psychiatry—that which calles psychiatric diagnoses “diseases” when none of them are and one-dimensionally drugs/poisons them. This from Dr. Brown of the American Psychological Association must be viewed as damage control. The diagnostic reports of psychologists are usually taken as proof of “disease” when they never are, leaving the equally complicit physician to scribble the prescription—more often for several than any single medications. What the poisons are doing in the bodies of the once-normal children can never really be known once the poisons number 3,5 or 10. ]]]]]]]]

The ever-increasing number of kids who come through the doors of pediatrician Esther Gonzalez's office lead chaotic lives. There's more divorce and more drug use, more domestic violence and physical and sexual abuse. Working parents are overwhelmed. "Some parents are so stressed out, they come in seeking a pill," Gonzalez said. It is easy to medicate kids; "it is very hard to change environment."

[[[[[[[[[FB: Dr. Gonzalez, knows as well as I that a “chaotic life” is not a medical diagnosis, nor is a “divorce.” She is excusing what she does which is but to anesthetized the child, more for the parent than the child while profiteering on the hastily prescribed psychyiatric drug, just what she is taught in all of her big pharma controlled CME. As far as I am concerned there is no excuse for Dr. Gonzalez, none at all]]]]]]]]]]]]]

At her practice in Crystal River, she starts with a thorough screening. A child might need occupational, physical or speech therapy. Sometimes, it takes psychiatric drugs. Despite her concerns about prescribing such medications, Gonzalez has no doubt they have saved many a child from juvenile detention. Not prescribing drugs to a child who needs them, she said, "it's like seeing someone dying and not giving them CPR."

[[[[[FB: “Thorough screening” to provide an illusion of legitimate medical care. Physical and occupational therapy do nothing to legitimize diagnose or the always-pharmaceutical treatment plan, long fore-ordained. Nor does here excuse that she saves children from juvenile detention in the least legitimize such, always-brain-damaging “treatment.” There is no legitimate place for drug-pusing psychiatry either in the juvenile or adult penal system. I would happily debate Dr. Gonzalez. She has sold out the youth of her community. More basically, she poisons them, this is all psychiatric drugging is, there being no actual diseases. Who, Dr. Gonzalez, is the child who needs them—the pills, the drugs. Show me one—one with an actual disease you are treated. What make you any different than the “pusher” in the alley? ]]]]]]]]]]]]

Among her patients is 7-year-old Matthew Peck of Brooksville. His 13-year-old brother and 16-year-old sister show scars on their arms and legs where he has bitten them. He flies into rages, kicks, scratches and pulls hair. He destroys furniture and punches holes in the wall.

[[[[[[FB: None of these constitute a medical diagnosis. A problem in need of non-medical, non-surgical solutions, yes! But not a disease.]]]]]]]]]

His mom, Cathy Peck, said Matthew's doctors are "leaning toward" a diagnosis of oppositional defiance disorder. And he has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Matthew has taken a 5 mg dose of the atypical Abilify for over two months now. He says "the blue pill" makes him feel like a different person, someone nice.

[[[[[[[FB: None of these are disease, “the blue pill” is not a treatment, the making him “feel like a different person, somehow nice” is not a cure or a therapeutic response. What we have here is this physician having become a “pusher”—a physician no longer.]]]]]]]]]]

Peck, a single mother on disability from the Army National Guard, says she worries the drugs may become addictive. And diabetes runs in the family, so that's a concern. Then again ... a few months ago Matthew got hold of a steak knife and destroyed a chair. "Am I afraid of what the medications might do to him? Yes," Peck said. "But I am also afraid of what his life would be like without them."

[[[[[[[FB: Having reached this point in her view on child-rearing, it is time the child was moved to a setting in which he would have some chance at a normal life, a life without psychiatric drugs. And yet, how did the mother reach this point in her thinking, where did it come from? It came from psychiatry and medicine. Such drugging should not be an option for any parent, nor should it be one pushed on them as the only option by persons calling themselves physicians. ]]]]]]]]

Matthew and his brother are playing. Suddenly Matthew raises a hand to hit him. "Gather!" Cathy Peck yells, the trigger word to help Matthew calm himself. He lowers his hand, shambles over to his mother, curls up behind her. Crisis avoided.

Matthew's 13-year-old sister, Marradith, said the Abilify works. "He's a different person. He's more fun to be around. He doesn't attack me anymore." The meds help, Mom says, but therapy is integral to Matthew's treatment. She was taking him to eight sessions a week of occupational, speech and language therapy. Matthew recently had his last occupational therapy session - but not by choice. After six years, Sensations Pediatrics Therapy in Brooksville closed shop on June 15.

That last day of business, Sensations owner Jeff Leonbruno lamented how hard it is for therapists to stay afloat. Particularly with pediatric therapy sessions, he said, there is a high cancellation and no-show rate, often four or five a day. If they don't show, he can't charge. "It's difficult to make a living at it," Leonbruno said.

Insurance companies and Medicaid don't pay enough for therapy, he said. They do, however, pay to reimburse for psychiatric medications. Over the years, he said, Medicaid priorities have shifted toward the elderly in nursing homes. That has put a pinch on services like occupational therapy for children with behavioral disorders. "There's no AARP for kids," he said.

Before the FDA approves a new drug, pharmaceutical companies must demonstrate its safety and efficacy. The trials generally are done on adults. [[[[[[[safety and efficacy in treating what disease? Being aggressive? Never having been truly parented and having a resultant “conduct disorder>” “Oppositional-defiant disorder.” There should be a special place in H or H for the persons who invented these “diseases”/”disorders” .

But once the drugs are on the market, doctors are free to prescribe the drug "off label," outside the scope of the FDA's indicated use. [[[[[[[Just the way the pharmaceutical industry wants it. And the FDA is off the hook—not their responsibility, not their fault]]]]]]]]]

Except for Risperdal, none of the antipsychotics is FDA-approved for children. The overwhelming majority are prescribed "off label." "It is alarming how frequently that is being done," Brown said. "It's of concern that it is being done at all." A child's brain and central nervous system are still developing, so drugs work differently on kids than adults, Brown said. "There are no studies that have shown they (atypicals) are safe, or for that matter, that they are effective for children."

Drug companies have little incentive to invest in such studies, given that their products already are widely prescribed to children off label.

The antipsychotics are FDA-approved for adults with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which used to be known as manic depression. But a study by the University of South Florida found that just 8 percent of Florida children prescribed antipsychotics last year had a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia, and 8 percent had major depression. The most common diagnosis, 38 percent, was ADHD.

Even with bipolar disorder, there is considerable debate in the mental health community about whether it is overdiagnosed, particularly in younger children. Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University studied the use of antipsychotics in children and concluded that only a small percentage had psychotic disorders. Most were used to treat mood disorders, depression, anxiety and ADHD - by families and doctors who have tried everything else and are ready to step outside the well-established treatments and take more risks. "Most child psychiatrists would probably tell you it does work," Olfson said. "But there is a real need for research, clinical experiments, to determine whether in fact it does work. Given the number of young people, it is a matter of urgency."

Mental health practitioners say they use more antipsychotics now in part because they are better able to identify some mental illnesses, including autism.

Never mind that the National Autism Association warns against the overuse of atypicals for children with autism. Last year, when Risperdal became the first and only atypical approved for use in children - specifically for irritability associated with autism - the association warned against potentially serious side effects, including lactation in boys, weight gain and development of an often irreversible movement disorder. Rita Shreffler, the autism association's executive director, said antipsychotics should be used only for dangerously aggressive children, and even then only for a short "leveling off period."

Dr. Randall Stafford, an associate professor of medicine at Stanford Prevention Research Center, says off-label prescribing allows doctors the latitude to innovate. But Stafford was the lead author of a study that concluded that most off-label medication occurs without enough scientific support. Some prescriptions have become so common, he said, "You have to ask, 'Where is the data to support this use of the drug?' It's not that these off-label uses are dangerous. It's that we just don't know."

Kate Malloy knows what people will think: Every kid throws tantrums; parents just need to discipline their children. But with 10-year-old Ryan, she said, the outbursts were beyond aggressive. He seemed outside himself. A psychologist diagnosed bipolar disorder and recommended they see a psychiatrist. "You are under the impression that when you go to the doctor you'll be fixed," she said. "And that isn't how it works. They don't, by any means, have all the answers."

The ADHD medication Ryan was prescribed only inflamed things, and therapy fell flat. They tried atypicals, first Risperdal. Then Zyprexa. Then Seroquel. "In the beginning, when the meds weren't working, I hated them," she said. "I hated that they were the only option."

She took Ryan off all the medications and tried an alternative doctor, who recommended dietary supplements. That worked, but only for a while. She went to Dr. Mark Cavitt, medical director of pediatric psychiatry at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg. He says mental health practitioners operate in gray areas. The unknowns of the long-term effects of psychotropic drugs have to be balanced against the risk of not treating.

Studies show that atypicals can be effective in modifying aggressive behavior, he said, and that kids who are treated for depression and schizophrenia are less likely to fall prey to pitfalls like drug abuse and teen pregnancy. Then again: "We have to be concerned. There is no such thing as a benign psychiatric medication." Dr. Cavitt prescribed Risperdal for Ryan. He couldn't tell when he was full and gained 15 pounds. When Risperdal stopped working, they switched to Abilify. Mom hates to think about the possible long-term effects but has more immediate concerns, like, "Will he jump out of a moving car?" "There are certainly downsides to medications," she said. "But when medications don't work, we are pretty much screwed. There are not a lot of options."

At the Suncoast Center for Community Health in Clearwater, the focus is on therapy. Drugs are a last resort. Renee Kilroy, the clinical director, said the sharp increase in psychotropic medications to children is unsettling. "It's not my belief we need to put more kids on medications. They are still growing and changing."

Therapy costs more in the short term, she said, but a lifetime of medications is costlier. Suncoast can afford to take the longer view thanks to subsidies it gets from the county's Juvenile Welfare Board.

More and more, she said, they get referrals from the school system for disruptive kids. Parents tell her that the school has told them their children need to be put on psychiatric medication before they can come back - even though state law specifically forbids that.

Children younger than 6 generally should not be given psychotropic drugs. According to guidelines from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, it should "only be considered under the most extraordinary of circumstances."

Last year, 1,111 Florida Medicaid children younger than 6 were prescribed antipsychotics.

There is no recommendation for the use of antidepressants in children younger than 6 - yet 629 children were prescribed antidepressants last year.

Using stimulant medications for ADHD should be "rare" for kids younger than 4, the guidelines state, "and only after a failed behavioral intervention such as parent training." Last year, 367 toddlers 3 and younger were prescribed ADHD medications.

Cavitt said 3-year-olds put on psychotropic medications typically are autistic, mentally retarded or brain injured. They are extremely self-injurious or physically aggressive to others, he said.

Robert Whitaker, a journalist and author of the book Mad in America, says there is no circumstance where it makes sense to prescribe an antipsychotic drug to a 3-year-old. "It is not a scientific use of drugs," Whitaker said. "It is an experiment. There is no data showing that they are helpful in a 3-year-old kid. None. Zero. Zip." Rather, he said, it is using medication as a controlling device. Whitaker blames a system of "assembly line medicine," where psychiatrists are afforded less and less time with patients. Atypicals provide a shortcut to dealing with unruly children. "It mutes your ability to respond to the world, emotionally and physically," he said. "They make them easier to manage, to others."

The pharmaceutical companies also help to shape the prescribing patterns, he said. The law forbids them from openly marketing to children off-label, but as any child psychiatrist will tell you, pharmaceutical reps for the atypicals are regular visitors.

Psychiatrists like Cavitt say the reps know the line: They are there only to provide company research and to solicit feedback on the use of their medications. But Whitaker said it's clear why the reps for atypicals are in the offices of child psychiatrists: "They do it because they know it's effective in promoting off-label uses of their drugs. "They are publicly traded companies trying to maximize their revenues. It increases off-label use, and doctors should quit pretending otherwise."

Minnesota is the only state that requires public reports of all drug company marketing payments to doctors. A recent New York Times analysis of those records found that doctors who took the most money from makers of atypicals tended to prescribe the drugs to children the most.

The support group for people whose relatives have committed suicide was unveiling a quilt with squares in memory of each person. Kathy Pingleton was seated in a plastic chair in the back row when her son's name was called. "Brandon Lee Pingleton." Her husband, Ken, put his arm around her and they made their way to the front. Kathy stole a glance at the section of quilt she made in honor of Brandon, a 15-year-old sophomore at Largo High School. She worried that she made the square too busy. Lots of pictures and buttons to show Brandon's love of football, soccer and karate. Kathy reached out a hand to light a candle in his memory. On one finger was a ring made of a guitar string that Brandon used. It reminds her of his artistic side.

Nearly four years ago she and Ken found Brandon hanging in his bedroom, just feet from where they were. Diagnosed with ADHD, Brandon had landed in a county crisis center after he overdosed on Robitussin and told authorities he was depressed. When he was released from the center, mom remembers taking him to a psychiatrist. After 5 minutes of evaluation - "How are you sleeping? How is school?" - the doctor doubled his dosage of the atypical antipsychotic Seroquel. She remembers wondering why he was taking the drug when the Web site said it was for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. She hated what the drugs did to him, as did Brandon. He said it made him feel like a zombie.

Seroquel now carries a black box warning that antidepressants may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts in children and teenagers, and that patients should be watched closely. Those warnings didn't come until 2004. Brandon hanged himself in 2003.

* * * Alan Levine ran the state's Agency for Health Care Administration in 2005. He became so alarmed by the spike in antipsychotics prescribed to children that he contracted with USF to study the trend. The study found that from mid 2002 to mid 2004, the cost of psychotropic drug prescriptions for kids increased 60 percent. Pacing that increase was an 82 percent jump in spending on atypical antipsychotics. "It has very quietly grown as a problem," Levine said. He wanted to reel it in, but not in a knee-jerk way that might hurt kids who need medications. "There needs to be a more sane and evidence-based approach when prescribing these drugs to children."

The use of antidepressants and ADHD medications dropped and the growth of antipsychotics slowed over a two-year period, starting in April 2004. By then, said Robert Constantine at USF's Louis De La Parte Mental Health Institute, any psychiatrist would have been aware of the metabolic side effects of the new antipsychotics, and, for those taking antidepressants, the dangers of suicidal feelings.

As part of the $3-million state grant, USF was charged with sending out letters to physicians who were regularly prescribing outside the accepted guidelines. For example, in the first quarter of this year, 315 children on Medicaid got antipsychotics at higher-than-recommended dosage levels. Another common problem, Constantine said, was the practice of prescribing more than one antipsychotic at a time. Some doctors swear it works, but there isn't much scientific evidence to back that up. The first three months this year, 274 children were prescribed two or more antipsychotics for an extended period.

Joanne Mills' 12-year-old son was on 16 medications. At the same time. "At the time we decided to put him on each one of them there was a good reason for it, or else we wouldn't have done it," said Mills, a mother of six in Homosassa. In the last year, by integrating therapy, she said they have cut her son's 16 medications to three, including the atypical Seroquel. He has been diagnosed with ADHD and occasionally explosive behavior. For three years, she had to hold him for three hours a night so he could sleep.

Frustrated to the nth degree, she says you walk into the doctor's office with a bubble of hope, and walk out 15 minutes later with a handful of prescriptions, for drugs you've tried before without any lasting benefit. "The doctors throw their hands up in the air and say, 'I don't know what else to try.' "

Times computer-assisted reporting specialist Connie Humburg contributed to this report. Robert Farley can be reached at (727) 893-8603 or farley@sptimes.com.

Most of the statistics in this story are derived from Medicaid data provided by Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration. The agency provided the same data to the University of South Florida, which was contracted by the state to study prescribing patterns. As a public service, USF prepared an analysis of the state's data for the St. Petersburg Times.

The numbers include only children on fee-for-service Medicaid. They do not include children in Medicaid HMOs or those with private insurance.

Some 720,000 children were in the fee-for-service Medicaid program last year, out of some 4.5-million children in Florida. That means the statistics in this story vastly underestimate the entire picture of antipsychotic medications prescribed to children.

The Medicaid numbers were used because the program is taxpayer-funded and the information is public.

The atypicals: A new class of drugs emerged in the 1990s, touted as a better and safer way to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Here are the atypicals now on the market. Trade name Drug name Marketed by Clozaril Clozapine Novartis Zyprexa Olanzapine Eli Lilly and Co. Risperdal Risperidone Janssen Pharmaceutica Seroquel Quetiapine AstraZeneca Geodon Ziprasidone Pfizer Abilify Aripiprazole Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Invega Paliperidone Janssen Pharmaceutica

That would interesting and I appreciate your looking that up as I've never been able to find it. But remember that not every child on ADHD meds receives special education services through an IEP. I know that because my older child was on meds for many years, without an IEP. The school wasn't even aware that she took meds in high school as she was on an extended release Adderall. So if the school received even one penny for her taking those meds, I'd like to know who let the school know she was taking something to control her ADD. That would be a HUGE violation of doctor/patient privilege.

Now, do schools get money for students with IEP's? Yes, they do. Maybe that is the figure of which you speak. But look at your statement carefully

The local school that collects around $400 from the fed. gov. for each kid on these drugs. A 'disability' payout from the feds.

You don't mention IEP's, just kids on ADHD meds. That is the link I'd like to see. Proof of a direct payment of money from the feds to the schools for children on ADHD meds, regardless of any other status.

Thanks

I can’t find an actual monetary , but on reading the ‘law’ $400 is chickenfeed.
Here are some findings...I wanted to highlight several passages but if I do I have to HTML everything, so read carefully.
The gist is the feds are supposed to pay 40% of the education expense of spec. ed kids. They are paying around 12-15%.
Also ADHD can be classified as a ‘disability’ under ‘other’, qualifying it for IEP.

These are all excerpts with the source listed if you want to do more investigation.

From Wikipedia……

• Unfunded mandate. When passed, federal government was supposed to pay for 40% of the cost of educating students with disabilities. However, Congress has yet to provide all of this 40%. As of 2007, the federal government pays for about 12% of special education costs.[citation needed]
• Overidentification of minorities. Overidentified in learning disabilities, MR, etc.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c108:1:./temp/~c108v2kDPi:e51425:
….H.R.1350
Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate)

`SEC. 611. AUTHORIZATION; ALLOTMENT; USE OF FUNDS; AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
`(a) GRANTS TO STATES-
`(1) PURPOSE OF GRANTS- The Secretary shall make grants to States, outlying areas, and freely associated States, and provide funds to the Secretary of the Interior, to assist them to provide special education and related services to children with disabilities in accordance with this part.
`(2) MAXIMUM AMOUNT- The maximum amount of the grant a State may receive under this section—
`(A) for fiscal years 2005 and 2006 is—
`(i) the number of children with disabilities in the State who are receiving special education and related services—
`(I) aged 3 through 5 if the State is eligible for a grant under section 619; and
`(II) aged 6 through 21; multiplied by
`(ii) 40 percent of the average per-pupil expenditure in public elementary schools and secondary schools in the United States; and
`(B) for fiscal year 2007 and subsequent fiscal years is—
`(i) the number of children with disabilities in the 2004-2005 school year in the State who received special education and related services—
`(I) aged 3 through 5 if the State is eligible for a grant under section 619; and
`(II) aged 6 through 21; multiplied by
`(ii) 40 percent of the average per-pupil expenditure in public elementary schools and secondary schools in the United States; adjusted by
`(iii) the rate of annual change in the sum of—
`(I) 85 percent of such State’s population described in subsection (d)(3)(A)(i)(II); and
`(II) 15 percent of such State’s population described in subsection (d)(3)(A)(i)(III).
………………………………………………………………….
http://www.ldanatl.org/aboutld/teachers/understanding/adhd.asp

For Teachers >
Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a condition that becomes apparent in some children in the preschool and early school years. It is hard for these children to control their behavior and/or pay attention. It is estimated that between 3 and 5 percent of children have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or approximately 2 million children in the United States. This means that in a classroom of 24 to 30 children, it is likely that at least one will have ADHD.
ADHD is not considered to be a learning disability. It can be determined to be a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), making a student eligible to receive special education services. However, ADHD falls under the category “Other Health Impaired” and not under “Specific Learning Disabilities.”
Many children with ADHD – approximately 20 to 30 percent – also have a specific learning disability…………….

You've posted what I knew already. The Fed pays 12% of the promised 40% of educating a child with disabilities. That comes to about 8% of the total bill for each child. Since it costs extra to educate every child with an IEP (some more than others) it would be poor financial management to push a bunch of kids into IEP's so that the local schools can pick up 92% of the extra bill and the Feds pick up 8%.

From your post.... It (ADH/D) can be determined to be a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), making a student eligible to receive special education services. ...and there's the rub. A diagnosis of ADHD can lead to an IEP, but it does not necessarily lead to an IEP. In fact, in the majority of cases it does not. To have an IEP, the evidence must show that a child cannot access the general education without accommodations either in the form of a resource class or mainstream modifications. For those children whose symptoms can be controlled with medication, there is no doubt that they can access the general curriculum, therefore, they do not need or receive an IEP, and the schools incur no extra expense. What I've seen happen is that a child has such severe symptoms they fall 2-3-4 years behind and need resource classes to catch up. By the time these kids are in high school, it is quite common to drop the IEP. Learning disabled children do not drop the IEP's as quickly as they are dealing with a more complicated problem.

So schools do not receive money for every child on an ADH/D medication, they receive money for every child with an IEP.

The article is also correct that children with ADH/D only, (no learning disabilities) are found eligible with an IEP and a label of OHI - other health impaired.

But taking your orginal statement The local school ... collects around $400 from the fed. gov. for each kid on these drugs... that is not proven by what you have posted here. To be fair, I knew you could not prove that statement. I've taught special education for a very long time and I also serve as a special education advocate for parents taking a school system to due process and know the law better than the average bear. But a great try and hopefully you found out information you didn't know earlier.

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