A House panel today approved a measure intended to protect teens in wilderness, "boot camp" and other types of residential programs which market themselves to parents of troubled youth.

By a 27-16 vote, largely along party lines, the House Education Committee voted in favor of the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act, which would establish federal standards for staff training and youth care at such programs and require federal on-site inspections of the operations.

Over the last several months, the panel had heard moving testimony from children who alleged they were abused in such programs, and parents whose children died while attending them.  Congressional investigators also probed the camps and reported serious problems with their operations and marketing practices.

"Kids being forced to eat their own vomit, to eat dirt, to not be allowed to go to the bathroom...all in the idea that somehow this is building character," is how Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who co-authored the bill, described what congressional investigators found when they probed some of the programs.

The measure now awaits consideration by the full House of Representatives.