Troubled Doctors Overprescribing Psychiatric Drugs to At-Risk Florida Kids
An investigation into Florida Juvenile Justice System has revealed that many doctors have “emerged from past troubles and gotten jobs at DJJ – with authority to prescribe drugs to kids in state jails.”
“In two years, Florida bought hundreds of thousands of tablets of Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdal and other antipsychotic drugs for children housed in state-run jails and programs. The meds were administered in a juvenile justice system that doesn’t track prescriptions and has no way of telling whether doctors are prescribing to make kids easier to control. ”
“By the time Florida started paying Dr. Gold Smith Dorval to counsel and medicate jailed children, the Pembroke Pines psychiatrist already had experience with kids in state custody.
He had used them, authorities said, to bilk the government out of money for the poor.
When Dorval pleaded no contest to a felony grand theft charge, it should have barred him, by law, from working for Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice.
It didn’t. ”
The list
“Doctors who have worked for the DJJ
A look at the credentials and work dates of physicians who have prescribed medications to juveniles at DJJ facilities:
Dr. Gold Smith Dorval
Licensed: April 24, 1989
Medical school: Universite D’Etat D’Haiti
Based: Pembroke Pines
Past troubles: Pleaded no contest to felony theft in 2004
Worked for DJJ: August-December 2007
Dr. Charles Dack
Licensed: June 13, 1980
Medical school: New York University
Based: Lakeland
Past troubles: Disciplined for overprescribing medication to a woman until she overdosed and died in 2002
Worked for DJJ: September 2008 to April 2011
Dr. Samuel McClure
Licensed: Oct. 11, 1979
Medical school: University of Florida
Based: Orlando
Past troubles: Sued for medical malpractice in the death of an 11-year-old boy who overdosed on medications
Worked for DJJ: January 2006 to June 2009
Dr. Sohail Punjwani
Licensed: Oct. 20, 1988
Medical school: University of Karachi’s Dow Medical College, Pakistan
Based: Lauderhill
Past troubles: Cited by FDA for medication mistakes during a clinical trial on children; prescribed mind-altering drugs to Gabriel Myers, a 7-year-old who hanged himself in 2009
Worked for DJJ: December 2007 to June 2008 ”
Dosed in juvie jail: Troubled doctors hired to treat kids in state custody
[Palm Beach Post 6/20/11 by Michael LaForgia]
REFORM Puzzle Piece
I believe that too much of anything is very harmful. If you take a close look at it, it sounds like those kids are getting worse if they are over prescribed by those anti psychotic drugs. Kids housed in state rain jails and programs or even in treatment facilities for those kids that are very troubled should not be given more medication because their risk for drug dependency might rise. I know medication is really a part but I would suggest that they get more on guidance, discipline and getting active.