Another Child Tragedy

By now, many of you have heard or read the news regarding the five young children that had been drowned by their mother in Houston, Texas, last Wednesday.

A recent article published in the Dallas morning news stated that the mother, “had taken a number of anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medications since the birth of her fourth child in 1999.” According to the same article, the woman had been taking the drugs Effexor and Remeron as early as the past week and had previously taken the drugs Risperdal, Wellbutrin and Haldol.

I have lost count of how many articles we have published involving the death of a child and the use of psychotropic drugs. It was only a week ago (one day prior to the drownings) that we published an article in which a jury found a drug company at fault in a wrongful death civil suit. Many will be as disturbed by this article as they were with the previous one.

I was watching a network news channel when the news broke concerning the drowning, and I noticed a shocking statistic…

According to the broadcast, in murder cases involving children under the age of 5, one of their parents was to blame in sixty-one percent of all cases. 31% of cases involved the father, and 30% involved the mother. In comparison, about 2-5 percent of the crimes were committed by strangers.

While they may not all be related, it would be interesting to discover how many times drugs were involved. Whether those drugs be illicit drugs, prescription pharmaceuticals, or over-the-counter medications is not my concern. I just want to know if any were involved. How many of those cases involved drug-free families?

And if we continue to help others raise drug-free families, would there be a change in the number of cases we would see?

Womens Health: Husband says woman changed medications