A state senator wants answers about the money spent by the state’s Medicaid program on psychiatric meds for children after reading a report in The New York Post, which found Medicaid paid $82.8 million in 2006 for numerous pills for thousands of children, even though many of the meds were never approved by the FDA for treating kids.

“It is critical that state agencies be fully responsible and aware of the medical ramifications of psychiatric drugs that are prescribed for children,” Tom Morahan, who chairs the state senate’s Committee on Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, says in a statement. He’s demanding that the state’s commissioners for health and mental health, respectively, issue a report by Feb. 25.

This comes amid growing debate over antipsychotics, and fears that kids are misdiagnosed; drugs are inadequately studied; some docs presribe the pills too readily, and drugmakers promote the meds improperly. New York health department officials say they don’t know which illnesses Medicaid kids are suffering.

“Pharmacy claims do not require a diagnosis,” a department spokeswoman tells the Post. Claims are paid without question based on a doctor’s judgment that a drug is “medically necessary,” even when not approved for kids, Medicaid officials tell the paper. They add, however, that the state now plans to look closer at how and why some drugs are prescribed.

Numerous states, meanwhile, are investigating off-label promotion. Last week, for instance, Florida’s Medicaid program began reviewing antipsychotics and prescriptions to children with ADHD, although the meds were never approved for such use. One of the most sensational cases, meanwhile, involves Lilly, which is reportedly negotiating with federal and state prosecutors to settle charges over Zyprexa marketing by paying $1 billion or more.

Zyprexa was prescribed to 2,647 New York Medicaid kids in 2006. John Milgrim, a spokesman for state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, wouldn’t discuss Zyprexa, but told The Post that “we currently have open investigations regarding this kind of conduct. Marketing of pharmaceuticals for off-label usage may be a fraud on the state Medicaid program.”

Johnson & Johnson’s Risperdal, meanwhile, was given to 17,393 New York Medicaid kids in 2006, making it the most heavily prescribed psychiatric drug in the program. It was recently approved by the FDA to treat autism but is also often prescribed for bipolar disorder in kids. It’s blamed in lawsuits nationwide for side effects including diabetes caused by weight gain, Parkinson’s-like movement disorders and gynecomastia, in which males grow breasts.

New York’se Medicaid program spending on the drugs in 2006 rose $8 million from the previous year and $15 million from 2004. In all, Medicaid counted more than 85,000 child recipients of psychiatric drugs in 2006 but said that number duplicates kids who got two or more drugs.