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IMPORTANT
FACTS
1. A 2001 Columbia University
study found ECT so ineffective at ridding patients of depression that nearly
all who receive it relapse within six months.
2. In 2003, the U.S.
Medicare health insurance program stopped coverage of “multiple seizure” ECT
as it was found to place patients at severe risk.
3. An estimated 300 people
die each year from ECT in the U.S.
4. An Australian judge
determined that the use of ECT on individuals without their consent is “an assault.”
5. Psychiatrists rarely
disclose to prospective ECT patients the very real risks of memory loss, intellectual
impairment and death.
Psychiatrists persist in inflicting electroshock on patients even though
no valid medical or scientific justification exists for this practice. After
more than 60 years, psychiatrists can neither explain how ECT is supposed to
work nor justify its extensive damage.
CHAPTER
TWO Devastating Effects
An ECT consent form used in the United States advises that memory of recent
events “may be disturbed; dates, names of new friends, public events, telephone
numbers may be difficult to recall.” However, the “memory difficulty”—amnesia—is
supposedly gone “within four weeks after the last treatment” and “only occasionally
do problems persist for months.”
Quite aside from a large body of scientific literature that proves otherwise,
tens of thousands of shock victims would disagree. Delores McQueen of Lincoln,
California, received 20 electroshocks. Three years later, she had yet to recover
large parts of her memory. She forgot how to ride horses, which she’d once trained;
she couldn’t remember family hunting and fishing trips; and she couldn’t remember
her old friends. For this “safe and effective therapy,” taking approximately
15 minutes of the psychiatrist’s time for each treatment, the payment was $18,000.
Psychiatrists continue to tell patients that ECT will help their “depression,”
but numerous studies have found that after three to six months, there is no
notable, long-term change. A 2001 Columbia University study found ECT so
ineffective at ridding patients of their depression that nearly all who receive
it relapse within six months.
In 2003, the U.S. Medicare health insurance program stopped coverage of “multiple
seizure” ECT, after an investigation revealed that the practice is unworkable
and places patients at severe risk.
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