Estimates of the number of children currently missing in the United States are only approximate because there is no effective central data bank to collect information on missing persons and unidentified bodies. However, the problem appears to have reached epidemic proportions. Some parents of missing persons have formed organizations in different parts of the country to advise other parents with missing children of measures that might prove effective in finding their child and to educate the public about the many problems and frustrations these families encounter. The police and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), although sympathetic, are often powerless in abduction cases. After several incidences of confusion and misinformation by the police and FBI about jurisdictional authority, the aunt of a missing child organized a volunteer program to press for a central communication network that could prove invaluable in cases with similar details by matching information to identify bodies or lead police to a single offender. If parents of a missing child have filed a full description of their children with the schools, the description could be forwarded in chain-letter fashion to local hospitals, hospitals across the country, and eventually into a central data bank. Federal legislation for this costly, but very feasible network is pending. (HTH)