The fight for human rights in mental health continues, with the campaign to ban electroshock. Promoted as “treatment,” the fact is Electroshock (ECT) is documented by the US FDA to cause permanent memory loss, cardiovascular complications, brain damage and death. Now, psychiatrists want to increase its use on the general public and on children.
While most Americans think that electroshock (called Electroconvulsive Therapy or ECT) is no longer practiced, the fact is an estimated 100,000 Americans are electroshocked every year. The American Psychiatric Association is now lobbying the FDA, which regulates the ECT device, to allow them broader use of electroshock, including its use on children, stating “Having access to a rapid and effective treatment such as ECT is especially meaningful in children and adolescents.”
The obvious fact is that electroshock should never be used on children. This is why several U.S. states and Australia have acted accordingly to ban its use on them, and these legislative reforms were assisted by the work of CCHR. Not only should ECT be banned on children, but such a brutal treatment should not be used on our elderly, pregnant women or any vulnerable individual seeking help (all of which are currently being electroshocked in the U.S.). The fight for human rights in mental health continues, with the campaign to ban this brutal treatment, particularly its use on children. This is what CCHR is doing about it:
1) Filing Freedom of Information Act Requests (FOIA):
Since no government agency keeps a record of how many children are currently being electroshocked in the U.S., CCHR International has filed Freedom of Information Act Requests with every U.S. state. CCHR has already received 14 responses to these requests, and in one state alone, we found 15 children between the ages of 0-5 have been electroshocked in the last few years.
2) Draft & Distribution of Model legislation:
While CCHR continues to campaign against the American Psychiatric Association’s push to get the U.S. FDA to broaden the use of electroshock, we have drafted model legislation to ban its use on children. As several states have already enacted such legislation, the goal is to get all states prohibiting its use on children.
3) Broad Distribution of ECT Facts:
CCHR International launched a new section of its website on the complete history and development of electroshock, and also created a 10 Facts You May Not Know About ECT which is being widely distributed online, giving the facts about electroshock, not the marketing campaigns currently being put out by the psychiatric industry and those with a vested interest in increasing its use.
4) Launch of the Change.Org Petition:
CCHR International launched the Petition to Ban the Electroshock Device Being Used on Children at Change.org. Our goal is 100,000 signatures, at which point it will be delivered to the FDA to help stop the proposed expanded use of the electroshock device on children.
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