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‘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
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August 7, 2002
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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 monthlong 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.
Should school systems be allowed to recommend that children be
put on psychoactive drugs?
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