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.
…it absolutely is illegal to provide OTC substances to children in your daycare without a signed release from each parent.
As it’s so clearly illegal, I was genuinely curious if your comment crusade was because you had a moral objection to it being illegal…hence my asking for clarification.
Additionally, this was an unlicensed daycare, and there might be additional restrictions in place regulating the dispensing of any substance to children, but you can look up the relevant NH regulations if you’re curious.
Curiously, they weren’t charged with giving kids in their care melatonin. Hmm.