Source:
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/54243.htm
The New York Post
Wednesday, August 7, 2002
'I WAS TOLD TO DOPE MY KID'
By DOUGLAS MONTERO
Michael Mozer was told he couldn't return to Millbrook Elementary School unless
he took anti-hyperactivity drugs.
- Alan Solomon photos
August 7, 2002 --
Should school systems be allowed to recommend that children be put on
psychoactive drugs?
A 12-year-old upstate boy says the trusted educators in his local school forced
him to take a cocktail of drugs that turned him into a psychotic who heard
voices in his head.
The boy, Michael Mozer, plans to sue the school officials who went so far as to
file a medical-neglect and child-abuse complaint against his mother with the
state's Department of Children and Family Services after she stopped the
medication.
They even banned him from attending classes unless he was drugged and then
accused his mother, Patricia Weathers, of educational neglect.
Michael's 32-year-old mom says she felt "intimidated, scared and unsure" in 1997
when officials at the Millbrook Elementary School allegedly told her that
Michael, a first-grader, would be transferred to special-education classes if he
didn't start taking the drugs.
"The school was telling me that he couldn't learn unless I medicated him," she
said.
After two years of knuckling under, she stopped drugging him.
Now the Dutchess County mom and son have enlisted the help of high-powered New
Jersey lawyer Alan Milstein, who has a reputation of aggressively going after
influential medical institutions accused of injuring their human-research
subjects.
The drugging began after a teacher became concerned that Michael exhibited
symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
School officials referred him to a pediatrician who, Weathers said, prescribed
Ritalin after spending just minutes reviewing the first-grader's school file.
She said the drug just seemed to make Michael worse.
By the third grade, Michael was suffering from insomnia, lack of appetite and
anti-social behavior, and suffered such anxiety he began chewing on his own
shirt sleeves, collars and pencils. Once he even started gnawing on a test
sheet.
School officials allegedly told Weathers her son was bipolar and suffering from
social anxiety.
They suggested more medicine - and this time the doctors prescribed a cocktail
of Dextrostat, another version of Ritalin, and Paxil, an anti-anxiety drug.
"They kept labeling him with disorders, not realizing the side effects of the
drugs was making him act this way," Weathers said.
"My son was becoming psychotic with these drugs . . . He was out of control."
Fed up, Weathers stopped medicating her son in December 1999 when Michael
pleaded, "Mom, make it stop - there's a person inside my head telling me to do
bad things."
Weathers says school officials prohibited Michael from entering the school and
in February 2000, filed a complaint against her with the state child-abuse hot
line.
"His behavior at school is bizarre: He hears voices and appears delusional, he
chews on his clothes and paper, he talks to himself and rambles when he talks,"
according to the complaint school officials filed with the state's Department of
Children and Family Services.
After a month long investigation, Weathers said, she was cleared of any
wrongdoing because she was able to prove through independent psychiatrist
evaluations that her son's sickness was related to the drugs.
A spokesman for Children and Family Services had no comment on the Weathers
case.
Six months after taking Michael off the drugs, a physical examination showed the
boy had a heart murmur. Weathers believes the problem resulted from the drugs.
Heart murmur is recognized as a rare side effect of drugs similar to Ritalin.
Milstein refused to discuss the particulars of the case until he files the
lawsuit.
He said he expects to file in about two weeks.
Milstein emphasized that he is suing on Michael's behalf for the physical and
mental suffering the boy endured.
The case is likely to be closely watched by educators statewide because it could
determine whether public-school officials and pill-pushing psychiatrists are
liable for the physical and mental damages that may occur when parents are
coerced to medicate their kids.
For years, advocates have complained that schools are too quick to label
rambunctious kids with ADHD and push for medication.
The lawsuit will not address the more controversial issue of whether school
officials can force parents to medicate their children, Milstein said.
"I don't care about the money," said Weathers, who formed her own advocacy
groups to prevent schools from forcing parents to medicate kids. "My son
suffered. I also suffered, but now I'm out there talking to the media trying to
make a difference."
Meanwhile, W. Michael Mahoney, the superintendent of the Millbrook Central
School District refused to comment on the case because he wanted to "protect the
individual rights of the students."
Weathers chuckled when told about his response.
"He should have thought about that before I was forced to medicate my son," she
said.
