Most states ignore U.S. law protecting drug-endangered newborns

By Duff Wilson (Reuters) - The Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 requires states to set up systems to ensure that medical personnel alert child protection workers to newborns “identified as being affected by illegal substance abuse or withdrawal symptoms resulting from prenatal drug exposure.” Congress was spurred in part by a 2001 Washington Post investigation of flaws in the District of Columbia’s child protection system. The Post found 11 newborns during an eight-year period who died after being sent home with parents “whose troubles were well documented by hospitals and social workers.” After the 2003 provisions were enacted, some states passed laws to meet the federal requirements. Most did not. A Reuters survey of state child protection officials and an examination of state statutes show that today, no more than nine states and the District of Columbia have laws that satisfy the federal provisions. “The 2003 law has not worked out the way we had hoped,” said U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, sponsored a bill signed into law this year that calls on the Department of Health and Human Services to examine what can be done to combat Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. “This is a huge problem and I’m not sure any of us have the answer,” McConnell said. “But at least we are trying to get people focussed on it.” (Edited by Blake Morrison.)