LOS ANGELES - Marylandian -- The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, which helped get electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) banned on minors in California nearly 50 years ago, hails the current decline in the use of shock treatment. Fewer psychiatrists are willing to administer ECT and in October 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that there has been a dramatic decline in its use.

CCHR argues that growing consumer awareness and court rulings on informed consent—including making electroshock device manufacturers liable for failing to inform of brain damage—could spell the practice's demise—which CCHR urges.

It disputes the current claim that 100,000 Americans receive electroshock treatment each year, as it is based on a study that is 30 years old. No federal agency tracks the number of people electroshocked, despite the practice causing severe memory loss and brain injury. It has often fallen to CCHR to obtain the information through Freedom of Information Act requests to states.

A sample of 27 states providing statistics on the use of ECT under Medicaid in 2023, revealed only 3,641 people given it at a cost of nearly $9 million—no longer the multi-billion-dollar money spinner it has been. Compared to 2020, for example, Vermont decreased its use by 57.7% and Massachusetts by 40.4%, making the practice redundant.

"The truth is that a very small minority in the medical community still accept and strongly advocate for ECT shock therapy," according to one Los Angeles law firm litigating on behalf of ECT survivors. "It was recently estimated that fewer than 1,000 psychiatrists practice ECT in the U.S., out of a national total of approximately 49,000 psychiatrists."[1]

CCHR recently distributed its documentary, Therapy or Torture: The Truth About Electroshock to thousands of attorneys across the country, offering facts that consumers are not told by those administering ECT.

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The amount of involuntary use of ECT in the U.S. is unknown, yet a July 2018 UN Human Rights Council report determined that forced ECT constitutes "torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." The 2023 WHO and OHCHR guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights, and Legislation reiterates that ECT without consent "may constitute torture and ill-treatment."

The guidance notes: "In Slovenia and Luxembourg, ECT is not available" and there are "there have been calls for it to be banned altogether." Without this, patients must be apprised of "potential short- and long-term harmful effects, such as memory loss and brain damage."

In October 2018, a California court ruled there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that an ECT device caused brain injury. The manufacturer settled the case and posted on its website that ECT may cause permanent brain damage.[2]

In an email produced during a deposition, a psychiatrist and CEO of an ECT device manufacturing company, revealed this was not for patient protection, but the "goals of the warning statement" were "one, to prevent lawsuits, and two, not alienate psychiatrists."[3]

On June 20, 2024, the California Supreme Court made a landmark decision that a patient could sue the manufacturer for not giving a stronger warning about risks. The company did not dispute it failed to warn doctors of the risk of brain damage and permanent memory loss.[4]

Electroshock was first discovered in 1938 by Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti who used it on pigs in a Rome slaughterhouse to quell their fear of being killed. Cerletti understood the effects ECT had when he experimented on patients: "When I saw the patient's reaction I thought to myself: this ought to be abolished!" Eighty-five years later, psychiatrists were still fixated on electroshocking pigs.

In a 2023 study, researchers, including the CEO of the ECT device maker, shocked a pork shoulder in an attempt to disprove cellular brain damage.

However, Kenneth Castleman, Ph.D., a biomedical engineer who has served on advisory committees for The National Institutes of Health and NASA, explains ECT-caused cell death: "Electrical energy is converted into heat inside the brain, raising its temperature. The larger the current, the more heat is produced. If the temperature gets too high the cells will suffer temporary injury, permanent damage, or even death." Additionally, through a process called "electroporation," the production of pores by electrical means, when the voltage is high enough, the "holes produced are too many and too large, thereby overwhelming the repair mechanism. Toxic material rushes in, and the cell dies. ECT risks brain cell damage both from heating and from electroporation."

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A 2009 Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences study on electrical injury also notes: "Four mechanisms of cellular injury by electricity are presently known. They are the direct effects of the current, thermal burns, mechanical injury due to falls, and electroporation."[5]

Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Clinical Professor at the Department of Medical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, Davis, says that "The amounts of electrical energy introduced to the human brain by ECT machines can be nothing but harmful and dangerous" and can be "expected to cause cellular physiologic, biochemical, and anatomic injuries to the human brain."[6]

ECT device manufacturers have never undertaken clinical trials to determine the safety and efficacy of their machines and psychiatrists admit they don't know how ECT or "electricity" works.

Experts say electroshock is more brutal today than how it was portrayed in the Academy-Award-winning film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975 because the voltage and amperage used is higher than in the past.

CCHR calls for all electroshock treatments to be prohibited.

If you or someone you know has been harmed or damaged by electroshock, please submit a report to CCHR here.

CCHR was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry, Thomas Szasz, securing hundreds of laws providing patient protections in the mental health industry, including banning deep sleep treatment involving electroshock.

[1] www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[2] www.madinamerica.com/2019/06/ect-litigation-patients-not-warned-brain-damage-risk/

[3] www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2023/august/electroshock-therapy-ect-trial-jury-finds-somati/

[4] www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2024/june/wisner-baum-prevails-in-landmark-win-for-patient/

[5] Brandon C. Bryan, et al., "Electrical Injury, Part 1: Mechanisms," Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, Vol.1, No. 3, 1 July 2009

[6] www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/