Gary Karr, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said Monday that "states already have the power to determine if a drug is not medically appropriate for a certain patient or certain class of patients."
Carole Keeton Strayhorn (Texas' Comptroller) is concerned that foster children in Texas are getting too much Risperdal and Zyprexa - see story below.
Carole, your next task: check into how much money Texas has spent on providing Viagra to registered sex offenders in Texas - and ask when it will stop.
And, if Texas (and any other state) has a problem finding sex offenders that are missing or absconded - here is a tip: search for the names, social security numbers, and birth dates for missing sex offenders on your state Medicaid eligibility files who received Viagra...I bet you find some absconders in that data - good luck!
Strayhorn Still Waiting For Vital Drug Data
Monday, May 2, 2005
(Austin)--Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn said she is disturbed vital prescription drug use data has still has not been released by the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services.
"On November 12, 2004, as Chairman of the Medicaid Fraud Oversight Task Force, I asked Governor Perry's agency to provide one year of data to determine whether drugs are being prescribed to make our foster children more submissive or simply to line the pockets of the unscrupulous and the uncaring," Strayhorn said.
"Last November, in my office, I was personally promised by Gov. Perry's agency that the data would be available within a week," she said. "Five months, two weeks and six days later - despite repeated letters, emails and visits by me and my staff - I still have not received the data on foster children. That's outrageous."
"This crisis grows minute-by-minute, child by child," she said.
Just over a year ago, Strayhorn called for a massive overhaul of the state's foster care system in a special report, Forgotten Children.
The report - which examined only one month of drug data - uncovered the fact that large numbers of psychotropic drugs are being prescribed to foster children.
"We discovered cases where young children were on multiple prescriptions - in one case, a child had been prescribed 14 different drugs," she said. "And children as young as three years old are receiving powerful mind-altering drugs like Risperdal and Zyprexa.
"If the one-month's data we have is typical, the estimated cost for these drugs for children in the foster care system would be more than $2 million a year," she said.
"May is National Foster Care Month," Strayhorn said. "It shouldn't take a national awareness month to force the agency charged with protecting our children to do the right thing and immediately turn over this data."
