The Region : ‘Zombie’ Claim Rebutted

The county Institutional Inspection Commission notified Supervisor Mike Antonovich that it had been unable to find any evidence of over-medication among teen-agers at the MacLaren Children’s Center. Contradicting earlier reports that youngsters were “walking around like zombies” after being given heavy doses of tranquilizers in lieu of therapy, commission Chairwoman Sybil Brand said she and the others had “at no time (seen) any child who could remotely be described as over-medicated.” The memo said members of the commission spent three hours on June 8 talking to youngsters and inspecting the center, which is the county’s sole temporary shelter for abused and neglected children. A report from the Commission for Children’s Service had claimed that 30% of the center’s older children were “over-medicated.”