Local News in Brief : Mother Sues Over Drugs
The mother of an 8-year-old boy sued the Glendale Unified School District, a school principal and a doctor Thursday for allegedly treating his behavior problems with drugs that caused pain and hallucinations.
The Superior Court suit alleges that Dr. Alvin Yusin, head of the County-USC Medical Center Child Development Clinic, prescribed daily doses of Ritalin to Michael Lorenzo without seeing the boy and based the prescription solely on the evaluations of a school principal and school district that he was hyperactive.
The boy’s mother, Adelia Lorenzo, became concerned about how the drugs were affecting her son and demanded that the dosage be stopped, the suit said, but a week later officials at Balboa Elementary School urged that Ritalin be resumed.
Principal Diane Hawley told Lorenzo that if she did not permit her son to continue taking the drug, he would be expelled from school, the suit said.
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