7-year-old boy prescribed powerful drug before suicide

Troubled boy was being treated by a Broward psychiatrist who is on a list of Florida doctors red-flagged as having ''problematic'' prescribing practices
Carol Marbin Miller | The Miami Herald
6:31 AM EDT, April 22, 2009
MARGATE - Weeks before his death, Gabriel Myers, the 7-year-old Broward boy who hanged himself in the shower of his foster home, had been prescribed a powerful mind-altering drug linked by federal regulators to an increased risk of suicide in children.

In all, Gabriel had been prescribed four psychiatric drugs, two or three of which he was taking at the time of his death, said Jack Moss, Broward chief of the state Department of Children & Families.

Moss said he is not sure which medications the boy was taking because Margate police took the foster home's medication log as part of an investigation into Gabriel's death last week.

Three of the psychotropic drugs carry U.S. Food and Drug Administration ''black box'' label warnings for children's safety, the strongest advisory the federal agency issues.

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