ECT runs electricity through head (Photo: Mind Freedom International)

I remember seeing a front-page story in the Boston Globe about a woman who cut a bagel in half and saw the face of Jesus in the bagel. There was a pilgrimage to the bakery, of people wanting to see Jesus.   I have nothing against Jesus - or against bagels, for that matter.   But I thought this was kind of crazy.   Yet it was accepted.   None of the people waiting to see Jesus in a bagel were hauled off to the hospital.  ~   Laurie Ahern,  2002  NARPA Convention, Portland Oregon, November 2002, quoted on Psyche Rights website

Mandatory Mind Control

Despite repeatedly asking for the shocks to stop, every two or three weeks, 54 year old Raymond Sandford of Columbia Heights is awakened early in his group home and involuntarily escorted 15 miles north to Mercy Hospital for another round of mandatory, court-ordered electroshocks to the brain, the treatment type and equipment debated in Congress now.

Thirty years after the FDA first ruled that ECT can cause brain damage, the FDA wants to declare electroshock machines safe with no safety testing.

Electric shock treatment is not only a torture applied on detainee prisons. It is increasingly used in the U.S.

Sandford is not charged with any crime.

He has received over 40 such rounds of electric shocks on an outpatient basis so far, even after his original mental problems long subsided.

Over Sanford's objections, his mother and friends, his legal conservator at Lutheran Social Service of MN (LSSMN) went to court and succeeded in mandating a continuation of having him electoshocked.

Last year, Sandford went to a public library in his attempts to find a human rights organization that could help.

He found the Eugene, Oregon based MindFreedom International that has helped him wage a campaign to stop the shocks and draw attention to widespread injustices in the mental health system.

In early May, MindFreedom will organize peaceful protests, news conferences and other actions in Minneapolis/St. Paul as the next step in the campaign.

Receiving hundreds of forced electroshocks for years against expressed wishes of the subject is becoming the "norm" for some mental health clients including those in New York State psychiatric institutions. (Feld, D.,  Forced Electroshock to be Debated in New York State High Court, May 2007)

Bought congresspersons pressure for ECT device

After what an F.D.A. report described as “extreme,” “unusual” and persistent pressure from four Democrats from New Jersey — Senators Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg and Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman, agency managers overruled scientists and approved a New Jersey -based ReGen electroshock device for sale in December reports Vera Sharav founder of Alliance for Human Research Protection.

All four legislators made their inquiries within a few months of receiving significant campaign contributions from ReGen ... but all said  they had acted appropriately and were not influenced by the money, according to a September 2009 New York Times report.  (Harris, G.,  Halbfinger,  D.M.,  F.D.A. Reveals It Fell to a Push by Lawmakers, New York Time, September 25, 2009)
The Times reports that according to OpenSecrets.org, the four representatives received a total of $26,000 from three ReGen executives beginning in October 2007.

Psyche Rights

Another non-profit, non-government organization focusing on mind freedom is the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights). This is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) public interest law firm whose mission is to mount a  strategic legal campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock in the U.S. akin to what Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP mounted in the 40's and 50's on behalf of African American civil rights.  

The public mental health system is creating a huge class of chronic mental patients by forcing them to take ineffective, yet extremely harmful drugs and electroshock that among other effects, causes amnesia and yields an 84% relapse rate. (Sackeim, H.A. Memory and ECT: From Polarization to Reconciliation,
Journal of ECT. 16(2):87-96, June 2000, referenced by Sharav, V October 2009)
These abuses are describe in Psychiatry: Force of Law. 

Currently, due to massive growth in psychiatric drugging of children and youth and the current targeting of them for even more psychiatric drugging, PsychRights has made attacking this problem a priority. 

Just as experimental H1N1 vaccines are being applied to children, Psyche Rights President, Jim Gottstein says, "Children are virtually always forced to take these drugs because it is the adults in their lives who are making the decision.  This is an unfolding national tragedy of immense proportions."

The Food and Drug Administration is in charge of regulating medical devices just as it does drugs, including the machines used to give Electroshock but Gottstein writes that it's not doing its job:

It has allowed these machines to be used on millions of patients over the past generation without requiring any evidence whatsoever that shock treatment is safe or effective! This is so even though shock machines are Class III---high risk---devices, which by law are supposed to be investigated by clinical trials as thoroughly as new drugs and devices just coming onto the market. But because of intense lobbying by the American Psychiatric Association---which claims the devices are safe but opposes an investigation---the FDA has disregarded its own law.

Vera Sharav, Founder and Director of Alliance for Human Research Protection writes:

Thirty years after the FDA first ruled that ECT can cause brain damage, therefore classified the devices to Class III, which require post-marketing safety trials, the agency was prompted into action by the General Accounting Office, which issued a report taking it to task for its neglect of pre-Amendments Class III devices like the ECT device, and mandating that it now take action.
For the full story of how shock survivors have fought for a scientific safety investigation of  Electroshock for the past 25 years, see what Sharav refers to as the "compellingly chronicle" account in Linda Andre's new book, Doctors of Deception: What They Don't Want You to Know About Shock Treatment.

In the five-minute video below produced by Twin Cities Indymedia, Ray Sandford, his mother Marilyn, and friend Daryl speak about the issues in their own words.

Ray Sandford, Advocates Speak Out Against Forced Electroshocks

Comments in writing can be made to Food and Drug Administration, Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305), 5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061, Rockville, MD 20852. 

Comments can also be made at www.regulations.gov   Either type "electroconvulsive therapy" as a keyword, or the number of the federal register notice: 2009-N-0392.

Steps for lodging comments online

1) Go to the FDA web site,  http://regulations.gov
2) In "Select Document Type" use the pull-down menu or type in the word:  NOTICES
3) In "Enter Keyword or ID" insert this docket number: 2009-N-0392
4) Click "Search"
5) Now see a blue link at the bottom left entitled: "Medical Devices: Neurological Devices; Electroconvulsive Therapy Device; Establishing a Public Docket"
You may now do any of the following three things:

READ THE NOTICE: Click the blue-linked title to read the FDA Notice itself [when you are done, at top of that Notice you may click the button 'submit comment'].

• SUBMIT COMMENT: Skip reading the notice, and under "Action" on right hand side, click the blue-linked "Submit a Comment"
• READ OTHER COMMENTS: Browse the other published online public submissions already submitted by clicking "Open Document Folder." If you submit online comments, your note should eventually appear here as part of the permanent public record.

Few comments have been submitted online so advocates urge the public to do so soon.

Those not in a position to write something are encouraged to send the coupon below:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Food and Drug Administration, Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305), 5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061, Rockville, MD 20852

Re: Electroconvulsive Therapy Device (882.5940), Docket #FDA-2009-N0392

The undersigned opposes the reclassification of the ECT device to Class II by the FDA in the absence of adequate scientific evidence of its safety, and asks the agency to call for PreMarket Approval Applications for the device.

Name:    _____________________________

Address: _____________________________

               _____________________________

Signature:____ _________________________

Learn more by asking, "Why and "Why not?" For more information on ECT and rights, contact Jim Gottstein: (907) 274-7686, (fax) 274-9493 or e-mail; Vera Sharav: 142 West End Ave., Suite 28P, New York, NY 1002 or email; Mind Freedom: (541) 345-9106 or 1-877-623-7743, P.O. Box 11284, Eugene, OR 97440-3484 USA or email. 

Your  subscribing to Articles by Dupré and forwarding and/or posting this link to this site are appreciated. Dupré is author of the timely book, Operation H1N1: Vaccine Liberty or Death, a unique, reader friendly ebook available at DeborahDupre.com. The book provides a timeline overview of U.S. non-consensual human experimentation including vaccines, over 150 references (mainly peer reviewed research), plus unique, interactive video links so the reader can easily gain and share with loved ones credible information through edutainment about the H1N1 'swine" flu and vaccines. See www.DeborahDupre.com or email info@DeborahDupre.com.