DCF may hire medical officer to monitor kids’ meds

Nov 19, 2009 1 min read

TALLAHASSEE (AP) – Florida’s welfare agency should hire a chief medical officer to monitor powerful medications prescribed to foster children.

That’s the recommendation of a task force formed after a 7-year-old foster child hanged himself in April.

Before his death, Gabriel Myers was on several powerful psychotropic medications that carried U.S. Food and Drug Administration “black box” label warnings for children and increased the risk of suicidal thinking.

Some of the medication is not approved for children.