CCHR urges a ban be extended to all electroshock machines used for behavioral and mental health treatment, citing brain damage and other harms.

By CCHR International
The Mental Health Industry Watchdog
March 29, 2024

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is pushing again to ban the use of electrical stimulation devices (ESD) for behavior modification, determining that they present an “unreasonable and substantial risk of illness or injury.” Disability rights groups and other organizations such as the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International and the United Nations Committee Against Torture have long called for the device and its electroshock practice to be outlawed. The device is solely used on students at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JRC) in Canton, Massachusetts.[1]

The FDA previously banned the ESD, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit claimed the FDA did not have the authority to ban the practice. In 2023, Congress passed a bill defining the FDA’s ability to do this.[2]

A disturbing video of a student, Andre McCollins, being shocked and restrained for seven hours after he refused to take his coat off when instructed to, further ignited the campaign for a ban. He was shocked 31 times while he cried out, “Please stop, please stop.” When it was over, McCollins had burn wounds on his arms and legs, the disability rights group, ADAPT, reported.[3]

A decade later, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, said the aversion therapy using this device was torture and sent an urgent appeal to the U.S. government asking it to investigate.[4] Speaking about electroshock treatment in general, Mr. Nowak told CCHR in an interview, “Against-your-will electroshock therapy is in my opinion absolutely prohibited.”[5]

In 2012, another Special Rapporteur, Juan Mendez, called for the torturous practice to end, stating: “The passage of electricity through anybody’s body is clearly associated with pain and suffering.” Mendez, a human rights lawyer during the Argentina “Dirty War” knew only too well how brutal the practice is, himself a victim of police electroshock torture in 1975.[6]

“Some students wear the electrodes as much as 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And sometimes for years,” according to an ABC News report.[7]

CCHR says that, astonishingly, the FDA originally classified the device, called a Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED), as an Aversive Conditioning Device because researchers considered that the pain or discomfort it inflicted was an indicator of “effectiveness.”[8]

Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, said, similar analogies have been used to justify the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) on 100,000 Americans each year, including 5-year-olds.  

The GED uses 9 volts, while an ECT device uses 50 times that—up to 460 volts—but “with ECT, the electrical assault on the body,” Eastgate said, “is masked by an anesthetic and muscle relaxant.”

A GED-4 emits 45.5 milliamps of electricity—more than 15 times as powerful as stun belts used on incarcerated adults that deliver shocks of 3 to 4 milliamps. Modern electroshock delivers a pulse of current to the brain that is 7.5 times stronger than electrical fences used to deter wild bears.[9]

The GED was developed by Matthew Israel, Ph.D., a psychologist and the founder of JRC. Israel came up with the idea of a punishment regime for children when he read a novel called Walden Two, written by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner. The book described a fictitious utopian community in which positive behavior is encouraged and negative behavior is thwarted. The Guardian reported that in 2007, staff “received a call from a senior manager instructing them to administer shocks to two badly behaved students aged 16 and 19. Over the following three hours, one of the boys was given 77 shocks, the other 29. It was later revealed that the initial phone call had been made not by a manager but by a prankster. In the wake of that incident, Israel was forced to resign as head of the school and sentenced to five years’ probation. Despite his departure, the electric shocks have continued.”[10]

Eastgate said that, “The use of electroshock for any form of mental health or behavioral therapy, is not only harmful but also a draconian practice—an admission of abject failure that in order to help individuals, pain and force must be resorted to.”  

Since 1976, when the FDA began to regulate medical devices and grandfathered in the ECT device under the Medical Device Amendment Act, CCHR has called for a ban of all electroshock devices. It has successfully obtained legislation banning its use on minors in several U.S. states and in Western Australia but continues to demand it be prohibited for all ages.

In 2018, the manufacturer of one electroshock device admitted that ECT can cause brain damage.[11] The other U.S. ECT device maker filed for bankruptcy in October 2021 in the wake of many consumer lawsuits alleging the practice causes irreversible brain damage. The FDA has resisted all consumer, family and industry concerns about ECT, allowing the electroshock devices to remain on the market without clinical trials proving their safety and efficacy.

In November 2023, Massachusetts introduced an “An Act regarding the use of aversive therapy,” which bans any facility from administering “any procedure which causes obvious signs of physical pain, including, but not limited to, hitting, pinching, and electric shock for the purposes of changing the behavior of the person.”[12]

CCHR wrote to all MA state legislators supporting the bill, reiterating that the FDA had determined that the shock device presented “substantial risks of both physical and psychological injury.”[13] They say this also applies to all electroshock treatment devices.

“You’re not allowed to use electric shock on prisoners or prisoners of war or convicted terrorists,” said Nancy Weiss, a retired professor who has helped organize opposition to the GED practice since 1993. Weiss said a ban on the use of painful electroshocks will be fought by those using the device because “this is how they make their money.”[14] The behavioral therapy has a lucrative annual price tag of $200,000 per student.[15]

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) just offered a higher incentive for psychiatrists to electroshock their patients, increasing the charge per treatment from $385.58 to $660.30.[16] It is already a more than $3 billion-a-year industry.

The FDA has called for public comments on the proposed GED ban until May 28 before issuing a final ruling.[17]

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[1] “FDA moves again to ban controversial shock therapy devices used by Rotenberg Center,” Sun Chronicle, 26 Mar. 2023,https://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/fda-moves-again-to-ban-controversial-shock-therapy-devices-used-by-rotenberg-center/article_5b3792d4-3dd0-5745-a92b-332edf69b33f.html

[2] Eric M. Garcia, “Will shock treatment finally be banned?” Boston Globe, 30 Jan. 2023, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/01/30/opinion/will-shock-treatment-finally-be-banned/

[3] “Andre McCollins – a Judge Rotenberg Torture Center survivor’s story,” ADAPT, https://adapt.org/andre-mccollins-a-judge-rotenberg-torture-center-survivors-story/

[4] UN Calls Shock Treatment at Mass. School ‘Torture,’” ABC News, 29 June 2010, https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/shock-therapy-massachussetts-school/story?id=11047334

[5] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cchr-supports-uns-and-rights-groups-demand-for-urgent-fda-ban-on-skin-electric-shock-devices-300770689.html citing Interview with Manfred Nowak by CCHR International, 17 Apr. 2014

[6] Mike Beaudet and Kevin Rothstein, “U.N. investigating Judge Rotenberg Center’s use of shocks,” MyFox Boston, 20 June 2012, https://www.cchrint.org/2012/06/21/electroshocktorturekid/;

[7] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cchr-supports-uns-and-rights-groups-demand-for-urgent-fda-ban-on-skin-electric-shock-devices-300770689.html; https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/shock-therapy-massachussetts-school/story?id=11047334

[8] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/03/09/fda-took-25-years-to-ban-painful-behavioral-shock-device/ citing, “Banned Devices; Electrical Stimulation Devices for Self-Injurious or Aggressive Behavior,” Food and Drug Administration Final Rule, 6 March 2020, Federal Register, 85 FR 13312, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/03/06/2020-04328/banned-devices-electrical-stimulation-devices-for-self-injurious-or-aggressive-behavior; http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/

[9] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cchr-supports-uns-and-rights-groups-demand-for-urgent-fda-ban-on-skin-electric-shock-devices-300770689.html; “UN Calls Shock Treatment at Mass. School ‘Torture,’” ABC News, 30 June 2018, https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/shock-therapy-massachussetts-school/story?id=11047334.; Shayna Korol, “Abuse is Not the Answer: Shut Down the Judge Rotenberg Center,” Huffington Post, 22 Dec 2016, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abuse-is-not-the-answer-shut-down-the-judge-rotenberg_b_585be5dde4b068764965bab3.

[10] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55990.Walden_Two; Ed Pilkington, “‘It’s torture’: critics step up bid to stop US school using electric shocks on children,” The Guardian, 16 Nov. 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/16/judge-rotenberg-center-massachusetts-electric-shocks

[11] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/06/23/consumers-unaware-that-brain-damaging-electroshock-devices-are-not-fda-approved/

[12] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/10/13/ma-bill-ban-electroshock-aversion-therapy-needed-nationwide/; Massachusetts House Bill 180, “An Act regarding the use of aversive therapy,” https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/H180

[13] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/10/13/ma-bill-ban-electroshock-aversion-therapy-needed-nationwide/ citing Heather Morrison, “‘It is not too late’: Advocates encourage lawmakers to act on bill banning electric shock, used at Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton,” Masslive.com, 9 Jun. 2022, https://www.masslive.com/politics/2022/06/it-is-not-too-late-advocates-encourage-lawmakers-to-act-on-bill-banning-electric-shock-used-at-judge-rotenberg-center-in-canton.html

[14] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/10/13/ma-bill-ban-electroshock-aversion-therapy-needed-nationwide/ citing Mike Beaudet, “Congress acts to help ban shock devices used for treatment at Massachusetts school,” WCVB, 16 Jan. 2023, https://www.wcvb.com/article/5-investigates-judge-rotenberg-center-shock-therapy/42526127; “What’s happening at the Judge Rotenberg Center?” Autistic Self Advocacy Network, https://autisticadvocacy.org/stoptheshock/; Cynthia McFadden, Kevin Monahan and Adiel Kaplan “A decades-long fight over an electric shock treatment led to an FDA ban. But the fight is far from over,” NBC News, 28 Apr. 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/decades-long-fight-over-electric-shock-treatment-led-fda-ban-n1265546

[15] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cchr-supports-uns-and-rights-groups-demand-for-urgent-fda-ban-on-skin-electric-shock-devices-300770689.html citing https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/shock-therapy-massachussetts-school/story?id=11047334 citing https://abcnews.go.com/images/Nightline/HT_US_Report_4_30_10_100630.pdf

[16] CMS Proposed 2.7% Rate hike for Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities in 2025, Behavioral Health Business, 28 Mar. 2023, https://bhbusiness.com/2024/03/28/cms-proposed-2-7-rate-hike-for-inpatient-psychiatric-facilities-in-2025/

[17] Federal Register: Banned Devices; Proposal To Ban Electrical Stimulation Devices for Self-Injurious or Aggressive Behavior, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/03/26/2024-06037/banned-devices-proposal-to-ban-electrical-stimulation-devices-for-self-injurious-or-aggressive