Join the Protest Against Electroshocking Children— May 14, 2016, at the American Psychiatric Convention in Atlanta, Georgia (sign up for the protest here)

There are currently 8 million U.S. children being prescribed psychiatric drugs, with more than 1 million between the ages of zero to five.   Children are being drugged simply because psychiatry has pathologized normal childhood behaviors, and repackaged them as “mental disorders.”  The result?  Millions of children being drugged for behaviors reclassified by psychiatry as “disease.”

There is a growing awareness among the public and press that this current epidemic of child drugging is wrong.  Children are becoming addicted to these drugs, many of which are in the same class of highly addictive drugs as cocaine, opium and morphine.   Yet the  American Psychiatric Association is doing nothing to stop this epidemic.  Quite the opposite, they are now calling on the FDA to allow them to electroshock children who don’t respond to “treatment” (drugs.)  This opens the door for millions of children experiencing side effects from the drugs, to be reclassified as “treatment resistant” and to undergo electroshock as “treatment.”

Let’s take a look at how electroshocking children plays out in real life: A child is laid out on a bed and put under anesthesia. Then they are administered a muscle relaxant. The use of muscle relaxants prior to being electroshocked is due to the fact that the convulsions from electroshock are so violent, that patients commonly used to break bones due to the convulsions the electricity produced in the body.  So let’s take a look at the muscle relaxant: The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry states in their “Practice Parameters for Use of Electroconvulsive Therapy With Adolescents,” that, “Muscle relaxation is achieved with succinylcholine.” According to the label for succinylcholine, the drug can cause cardiac arrest, severe, prolonged respiratory muscle paralysis, potentially life-threatening and/or fatal allergic reactions. So the risk starts there. Also note the voltage given in today’s ECT is higher than when patients were breaking bones so the muscle relaxant makes it appear less barbaric than earlier electroshock—but its not.  Next, electrodes are placed on one side of the head of a child or on both temples; the ECT machine is turned on, sending up to 460 volts and between 550 and 1,000 milliamps of electricity (depending on the machine) through the child’s brain. This electricity shocks the brain producing a seizure that lasts about 60 seconds.

According to the FDA, ECT can cause physical trauma (including fractures, contusions, injury from falls, dental and oral injury) prolonged or delayed onset seizure and complications, including heart attack and even death. Along with these possible outcomes are permanent memory loss, confusion and cognitive dysfunction. And yet the American Psychiatric Association wants to inflict this torture on children.  (note: for documents related to these facts, click here  and see endnotes)

We cannot allow this to happen.  

Join Us— Help save our kids. March with us to protest their annual convention in downtown Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, May 14, 2016.

Sign up on the Facebook event page here or RSVP at saveourkids@cchr.org

Meet up at 10:30 am at the north end of Woodruff Park Peachtree St NW & Auburn Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30303