In my previous article about the federal government using foster children as guinea pigs for AIDS drugs, I encountered the following question:

Since these children do not have any loving parents, who is going to be their champion?

It was a good question, and I'd like to answer it here. Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you view it), I find myself uniquely qualified to be a champion to foster children who have been mistreated by a callous system. I lost one brother due to abuse because of the negligence of county social workers, and another to suicide resulting from years of abuse, much of which was at the hands of the foster care system. I spent about half of my formative years in foster care, including one home that was, essentially a "foster farm", and concentrated on taking in as many children as the state would allow for their own financial gain. It is with some reluctance that I take on this role, but I realize that my experiences and observations qualify me far beyond the average individual.

Now for the "dry" part of this article, the stats. According to the research gleaned from the following website: Link , 18 children died of abuse or neglect in the 48 states that reported figures to the Health and Human Services department in 2001. These figures do not include the states of California and Michigan, which do not report statistics to HHS. While this number does not seem overwhelming, keep in mind that these children died in a system that was SUPPOSED to protect them; further keep in mind that these figures ONLY include those children who DIED of abuse and neglect within the system, and not those who SUFFERED abuse and neglect. It also doesn't include suicides which may have resulted from abuse and neglect, SIDS cases (which often have undiscovered abuse and neglect variables as a cause of death), and unknown causes.  In Texas, for instance, in 2002, 44 children died while in foster care, 28 of these cases were investigated. of those 28, 2 were known cases of abuse and neglect, 3 were unknown causes, 3 were suicides, 18 were for medical causes, including one SIDS case.

A 1999 study in North Carolina, followed by a 2002 Colorado study showed that as many as 60 percent of deaths from neglect are unreported. The numbers were not available for the state of Texas.

I would like to add the sidenote that NONE of my family's personal experiences were recorded as being due to the foster care system; however, ALL FIVE of my siblings and I experienced abuse and/or neglect at the hands of the system that was supposed to be designed to protect us. This is an injustice we MUST NOT continue to tolerate.

The answer, in my opinion, is not to seek additional funding for CPS. The answer, again in my opinion, is to seek its outright dissolution. Law enforcement agencies can be trained to handle child custody issues, and private organizations can handle the caseload of LEGITIMATE abuse and neglect cases more efficiently (I might add this is already being done in most states with developmentally disabled individuals, with FAR BETTER results than those obtained by the states). We are treating a certain section of society as disposable, and this MUST CHANGE for the benefit of us all.