Four New Hampshire daycare employees allegedly spiked children’s food with the sleep supplement melatonin and were arrested on Thursday.
After a six-month investigation, police discovered that children had been furtively dosed with melatonin. Officers arrested the daycare owner, 52-year-old Sally Dreckmann, along with three of her employees: Traci Innie, 51; Kaitlin Filardo and Jessica Foster, who are both 23.
Melatonin is a sleep aid supplement that is sold over the counter. But the long-term impacts of melatonin on children are not widely known.
Furthermore, there have been several reports of children being overdosed with melatonin in recent years. About 7% of emergency department visits between 2012 and 2021 were for children who had accidentally ingested melatonin, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine issued a health warning for melatonin use around kids and adolescents, warning against the lack of US Food and Drug Administration oversight for the sleep aid.
Yes… they were arrested for giving it to children without their parents’ permission.
It is legal for a parent to give their child melatonin. Are you really not aware of that?
I mean read the damn article-
and why would they need their parents permission? I dont think you took in what you were responding to, melatonin isnt harmful.
Sorry… why would daycare workers need parents’ permission to add melatonin to a child’s food? Are you serious?
Harmful has nothing to do with it. You don’t seem to understand about what daycare workers have the legal right to do.
I sincerely hope you do not work around children.
There’s no specific laws against this, they’re charged with endangering children. Which means risking harm. You’ve encountered the reality that there’s no real risk of harm so you try to justify it with risk of allergic reaction.
… providing psychotropic chemicals to children, en masse, and without the knowledge or permission of their parents.
Yeah, you’re right, definitely no laws against that and clearly there’s no possible risk of harm.
The FDA considers melatonin supplements as a food additive, not a drug. Again, why exactly would it be considered illegal?
No, they don’t. It’s considered a dietary supplement, which thanks to the Supplement lobby is notoriously unregulated.
And FWIW I don’t think that you pointing out how special interests lobbies have created any entire industry built on the manufacturering and mass marketing of unregulated supplements and chemicals somehow supports the idea that their safe for kids to consume, or to be dosed with by unlicensed daycare workers.
Never said anything about this was safe. I was making the point that it’s probably not illegal.
A point you supported by saying melatonin was considered a food, or food additive, which it’s not.
It is legally considered a supplement, which are not FDA regulated, and because it’s used to alter a persons mind and behavior, it is a psychotropic.
So are you saying it’s not, or shouldn’t be, illegal for unlicensed daycare workers to secretly dose children’s food with unregulated psychotropic supplements?
Why not just give the kids THC, or even LSD? Neither of those can be overdosed on, allergic reactions are extremely rare, and are generally not harmful. So by your logic, they should be A-OK to give to kids without their parents permission. Right?
Those are illegal, both for kids and their parents.
I wasn’t advocating for the daycare workers here. It’s not cool to give someone else’s kid melatonin without permission. Fairly certain it isn’t illegal though, and the fact that these daycare workers weren’t charged with it supports my position.