Political Quotes

“President, I rise today, along with my colleague, Tom Coburn, to proudly introduce the Child Medication Safety Act, a bill to protect children and their parents from being coerced into administering a controlled substance or psychotropic drug in order to attend a school. The text of my bill exactly matches the text of H.R. 1790, which passed the House on November 16, 2006 by a vote of 407 to 12. Parents today face many challenges when raising their children, one of which is ensuring that their children receive the best education possible. My views on education come from a somewhat unique perspective in that my wife, Kay, was a teacher at Edison High School in Tulsa for many years and now both of our daughters are teachers. I can assure you that I am one of the strongest supporters of quality education. However, it has come to my attention that schools have been acting as physicians or psychologists by strongly suggesting that children with behavioral problems be put immediately on some form of psychotropic drugs. Schools and teachers are not equipped to make this diagnosis and should not make it mandatory for the student to continue attending the school. This is clearly beyond their area of expertise. Therefore, I am introducing this legislation to ensure that parents are not required by school personnel to medicate their children.”