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DAMAGING
RESULTS A History of ‘Shock’ Treatment
Late 1920s: Viennese psychiatrist Manfred Sakel induced a coma by injecting
large doses of insulin into an unfed patient, which produced a hypoglycemic
(the medical condition of an abnormally low level of sugar in the blood) reaction
and caused convulsions. Studies revealed neuronal shrinkage and a 5% death rate.
1934: Hungarian psychiatrist Ladislaus Joseph von Meduna developed Metrazol
(a drug used as a circulatory or respira- tory stimulus) shock, and injected
a mixture of camphor and olive oil that produced violent convulsions and caused
bone fractures.
1938: Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti, after being inspired by a visit
to a Rome slaughterhouse to see pigs shocked into docility before being killed,
developed ECT for humans.
1975: In an article in Psychology Today, neurologist Dr. John
Friedberg wrote that ECT “is demonstrably ineffective and clearly dangerous.
It causes brain damage manifested in such forms as severe and often permanent
loss of memory, learning disability, and spatial and temporal disorientation.”
1976: California passed a precedent-setting law prohibiting the use
of ECT without patient consent and banning its use on children under the age
of 12. It became a model for mental health law reform around the world.
1978: Max Fink, professor of psychiatry at the State University of New
York at Stony Brook and recipient of $18,000 in fees for two ECT instructional
videos, wrote: “The principal complications of electroshock therapy are deaths,
brain damage, memory impairment and spontaneous seizures. These complications
are similar to those seen after head trauma, with which ECT has been compared.”
1993: Texas passed the strictest law on shock treatment to date, banning
the use of ECT on children under the age of 16 and requiring all deaths that
occur within 14 days of ECT to be reported to the Department of Mental Health
and Mental Retardation.
1998: The Piedmont Regional Council in Italy passed a resolution, stating
that because psychiatrists do not know how ECT “works” and its scientific veracity
is “questionable,” its use should be prohibited, at least, on children, the
elderly and pregnant women, and no doctor must be obliged to recommend ECT.
2003: “Shock damages the brain, causing memory loss and disorientation
that creates an illusion that problems are gone, and euphoria, which is a frequently
observed result of brain injury.”
— U.S. Mental Health Foundation ECT Fact
Sheet.
Since the first ECT machine was developed in the late 1930s, this form of “therapy”
has been a lucrative practice for psychiatry. Today the administration of electroshock
brings in an estimated $5 billion annually to the psychiatric industry in the
U.S. alone.
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