The Rotenberg Center, which administrated over 30 Electroshocks to teen in 7 hours—is being sued

Following a year in the cross-hairs of state officials critical of its controversial electric-shock methods, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton is on the defensive again, this time fighting off a civil lawsuit in Norfolk Superior Court that has quickly attracted national and international media coverage. Andre McCollins, now 26, and his mother, Cheryl McCollins of Brooklyn, N.Y., is the plaintiff in the negligence lawsuit against the Rotenberg Center and three of its psychologists. The lawsuit says that in 2002 Andre received 30 electric shocks over a seven-hour period while he was also restrained face-down.

Graphic Video of Teen Being Restrained, Electroshocked Played in Court

Video of a student restrained and shocked for hours at the Judge Rotenberg Center was played in court on Tuesday after a years-long battle by the center to keep it from the public eye.
The video, which shows former resident Andre McCollins screaming, writhing in pain, and begging for help, was played at the start of McCollins’ trial against the Canton-based Judge Rotenberg Center.

“I never signed up for him to be tortured, terrorized and abused,” Cheryl McCollins told the jury. “I had no idea, no idea, that they tortured the children in the school.”

The Rotenberg Center convinced a judge eight years ago to seal the video, and the battle continued up until Tuesday morning when their attorneys asked Superior Court Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara to bar FOX Undercover’s camera from recording the video as it was played.

Dortch-Okara denied the center’s request, clearing the way to give the public the first look at how these controversial electric shocks are used. The video was taken by one of the center’s classroom cameras.

McCollins, then 18 years old, was shocked 31 times that day in 2002. Lawyers for the center and its clinicians say it was part of the treatment he needed to quell his aggressive behavior.

The end of antidepressants? Studies show they’re no more effective than placebo yet carry serious health risks

Watchers of a February broadcast of “60 Minutes” may have been stunned to learn that studies have been conducted that seem to prove that antidepressants, on the whole, are no more effective than placebo.

This revelation about antidepressants – among the top-selling and top-prescribed drugs in the United States – may have been new news to some, but the studies conducted by Irving Kirsch, PhD, and colleagues, have been raising eyebrows and garnering attention since 1998. Which begs the question, have Kirsch’s studies had any impact on the sales of antidepressants and/or on the prescribing patterns of doctors?

Time for real medicine, rather than psychiatry

Experts have suggested a controversial psychiatric “disorder” may have been misdiagnosed in a large percentage of cases, according to a new study. The disorder is the highly lucrative ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

The study suggests three out of four cases may be wrongly diagnosed. On the basis, however, that ADHD has never been scientifically proven to exist, and on the basis that ADHD came into being after it was unscientifically voted into existence, it would be entirely accurate to say four out of four cases are wrongly diagnosed.

Huffington Post—Why Relationships May Soon Be Psychiatric Diseases

For some years now there has been a movement afoot in the mental health care field to include a diagnosis called “relational disorder” in the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), due out in 2013.

DSM certification of RD could prove to be a cash cow for all of the professionals treating people from heartbroken marriages and feuding families. 800,000 U.S. couples a year visit offices for marital and family help. Do the math. Some people stand to make a lot of money.