9 Comments

1. Pat Corekin sent this e-mail to the Idaho House members.

   Dear Idaho lawmakers,

   I am a volunteer with the human rights group MindFreedom International, which also works with the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights).

   I’m writing to express my opposition to S1354 due to the harm that ECT, more appropriately called electroshock, causes. I was horrified to see that children as young as 12 will be subjected to this form of so-called treatment. Please see PsychRights and Committee for Truth in Psychiatry submission to FDA opposing reclassification of electroshock machines, March 25, 2016, documenting the great harm from electroshock without any lasting benefit. For more information, please see the full list compiled on the Electroshock Webpage at PsychRights.org.

   Usually by the time a person is subjected to electroshock, they have already been through a number of psychiatric drugs. These drugs are not benign — the damage they cause is real, especially to children. Trying to fix this damage by shocking the brain doesn’t make sense.

   You can read about the black box labels placed on antidepressants warning about the suicidal effects of these drugs, especially for children, here: Suicide and Antidepressants. It’s been known for decades that in order to get people through the first SSRI drug trials (Prozac), Eli Lilly placed the trial subjects on benzodiazepines (tranquilizers) to cover the side effect of akathisia. Akathisia has caused many people, especially children, to be inappropriately diagnosed with severe mental illness and subjected to antipsychotics. The Guardian reported about the use of tranquilizers in the Prozac drug trials in an article back in 1999 – They Said It Was Safe. Please note that antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and antipsychotics can all cause akathisia, both as a side effect and also as a withdrawal effect.

   As for benzodiazepines, the FDA issued a new warning on these drugs in 2020 to include suicidal and homicidal thoughts, mania, and possible long-lasting withdrawal effects. See FDA requiring Boxed Warning.
   In addition to side effects, there are also potentially severe withdrawal effects from many psychiatric drugs, even though the pharmaceutical companies have lied about this (for an example, see this medical journal article: Withdrawal from paroxetine can be severe, warns FDA). In fact, hundreds of thousands of people are documenting the torture of withdrawal from psychiatric drugs as noted in psychiatry’s own trade journal, Psychiatric Times – Online Communities for Drug Withdrawal: What Can We Learn?
   Again, since electroshock is not the first line of treatment, it’s likely these patients’ brains and nervous systems have already been damaged by these pharmaceuticals — as cited in psychiatry’s own journals and by the FDA. Subjecting patients, especially children, to further treatment via electroshock is inhumane. We owe them better.
   Please do not allow S1354 to become law.

   Sincerely,
   Pat Corekin

   Reply

   • Thanks for posting these emails, Jim.

     I’m linking a google doc that contains the same email as you just posted with working links to the research and articles cited.

     https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dVChonAlLAc3iOOIPmsa_errDKy0PJg2eacW6SyI4Eg/edit?usp=sharing

     Pat

2. Dr. Daniel Fisher sent this e-mail.

   To members of the Idaho House of Representatives,

   I am writing to strongly oppose S1354, which would make it legal to submit children as young as 12 to electroconvulsive treatment (ECT, aka shock treatment). I am a psychiatrist, an neurochemist, and Chairman of the Board of the National Empowerment Center. I feel, that as an expert in the field I should provide information regarding mental health treatment to decision makers in all realms of society. ECT is an extremely controversial procedure that has caused life-changing harm to many. Yet adults who elect to undergo this procedure are not given the opportunity to provide truly informed consent. The situation is even more egregious for children, who are not developed enough to give informed consent.

   ECT involves serious risks. In fact, many believe it has destroyed their lives. The risks—permanent amnesia and permanent deficits in cognitive abilities—have been confirmed by researchers such as Dr. Harold Sackeim, a well-known proponent of ECT, whose 2006 study in Neuropsychopharmacology (www.nature.com/npp/journal/v32/n1/full/1301180a.html) concludes: “This study provides the first evidence in a large, prospective sample that adverse cognitive effects can persist for an extended period, and that they characterize routine treatment with ECT in community settings.”
   I testified before the Neuroscience Advisory Board of the FDA in 2011 when the agency was contemplating moving ECT equipment from Class III to Class II. I pointed out that a Class III meant the ECT device and procedures need to be shown to be safe and effective. The Advisory Board voted 10-8 to preserve the Class III status of ECT. However, neither the manufacturers nor practitioners of ECT have proven the device or practice to be safe and effective (for adults or young persons) nevertheless, this down grading of classification occurred for certain conditions, such as catatonia, but not all conditions for adults. There has been no such hearing for young persons, and no reduction in classification has occurred for young persons under the age of 18. Here is a link to my testimony: https://power2u.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/OralRemarksToFDA-1.27.11.pdf
   I have developed and propose Emotional CPR instead of ECT, for all age groups. (Www.emotional-cpr.org)
   Please do not allow S1354 to pass and become law. The well-being of many Idahoans depends on your actions.
   Sincerely,

   Daniel B. Fisher, MD, PhD (he,his,him)
   Board Certified Psychiatrist
   President of Board, NEC, Inc.
   Vice President, NCMHR

   http://www.power2u.org
   ntro to eCPR
   https://youtu.be/g0nf5X8bcI4

   Reply

3. Care Wang sent this e-mail.

   Hello,

   I’m writing to express my strong opposition to S1354. Electroshock can cause memory loss, cognitive deficits, and permanent brain damage. No study has ever found a beneficial effect of electroshock lasting more than four weeks, and rather than decreasing the risk of suicide, research has found that it is associated with increased mortality. See this document for more information: PsychRights and Committee for Truth in Psychiatry submission to FDA opposing reclassification of electroshock machines, March 25, 2016.

   It would be extremely dangerous to allow a “treatment” with serious risks and no proven long-term benefits to be used on children, especially since their wishes can be ignored if their parent or guardian feels differently. There are many other ways to respond to minors’ mental health issues that would not damage their developing brains. Please do not allow S1354 to become law.

   Sincerely,
   Claire Wang

   Reply

4. Rudi Leibik sent this e-mail.

   Dear Member of the House of Representatives – I am writing to express my strong opposition to Bill S1354, which would make it permissible to subject patients as young as twelve years old to electro convulsive shock therapy. This so-called “treatment” has been classified as torture by the United Nations’ Rights of People With Disabilities, and there are organizations who have worked tirelessly to ban ECT altogether for its myriad of common serious long term effects. I implore you to take the time to get educated on this important issue, and to vote “No” on Bill S1354. Your leadership on this issue is vitally important. The time has come to end barbaric practices such as ECT permanently, and not to increase the use of shock treatment on ever younger, and more vulnerable populations.

   Thank you for standing up for human rights –

   Rudi Leibik
   (Concerned citizen, and voter)=

   Reply

5. This is from Jacek (Jack) Haciak

   Esteemed Idaho Legislators,

   I am a retired Licensed Psychologist and mental health program Director having practiced in five states, and now consult for legislators and mental health programs, and provide education and training. I strongly encourage you to vote NO on S1354.

   1. For adults to take the risk of diminished cognitive functioning, a common side effect from electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), for their own lives is one thing. For adults to risk diminished cognitive functioning for children whose brains are yet to complete development around age 23 is an abdication of our responsibility to keep children safe.
   2. “The ECT Handbook,” Chapter 9 – Electroconvulsive Therapy in Children and Adolescents (2019, Cambridge University) provides this summary:
   “The evidence base for the use of ECT in children and adolescents aged under 18 years (hereafter referred to as ‘paediatric ECT’) consists of individual case reports, case series and retrospective chart reviews, but no Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs). This limited evidence base alongside concerns about the effects of ECT on the developing brain may help explain the infrequent use of ECT by child and adolescent psychiatrists.”
   A. Individual case reports, case series, and retrospective chart reviews are limited methods of research which provide no conclusive evidence of any treatment being effective. It is basically a hindsight speculative review of “trial and error” outcomes for guesstimates about treatment effectiveness.
   B. The reason there are no randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for ECT on humans under 18 years of age, (RCTs being the standard required for any reasonable level of confidence in treatment study findings) is because no research institute or university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) will ethically approve such a study given the medical risks to the youth. That is why the medical community instead is forced to use the inferior trial-and-error “research” estimating methods about the benefits of ECT for youth.
   3. Informed consent by an adult for accepting a medical risk just for themselves is very imperfect, and leads to unanticipated results on a regular basis. Having sufficient understanding of complex medical issues for confidently calculating a risk to ourselves is not possible, but for ourselves we may take chances we might not want our loved ones to take. For medical professionals to persuade a parent or guardian that they should feel comfortable giving informed consent for a medical procedure for their child which has never been researched by standard methods and found to be safe for children is deceptive and unconscionable, and thus why research institutes won’t allow it.

   Our youth depend on adults using common sense to help them stay safe, particularly when dire circumstances might tempt desperate adults to risk their children’s futures in an all-or-nothing roll of the dice, the outcome of which will become another after-the-fact statistic and being of no meaningful predictive value for the medical community’s unfounded reassurance that ECT is safe.

   Protect our children. Please vote NO on S1354.

   Thank you.

   Jacek (Jack) Haciak, PsyD, Director
   DynamicChanges LLC
   P.O. Box 13352
   Salem, Oregon 97309

   Reply

6. This is from Janna Weiss.

   Dear Idaho Legislators,

   Electroshock, also known as electroconvulsive “therapy” (ECT) is a barbaric and inhumane practice that causes permanent and debilitating brain damage. Electroshock (ECT) should be abolished.

   Psychiatric expert Dr. Peter Breggin states:

   ECT (electroconvulsive therapy, shock treatment, electroshock) involves the application of two electrodes to the head to pass electricity through the brain with the goal of causing an intense seizure or convulsion. The process always damages the brain, resulting each time in a temporary coma and often a flatlining of the brain waves, which is a sign of impending brain death. After one, two or three ECTs, the trauma causes typical symptoms of severe head trauma or injury including headache, nausea, memory loss, disorientation, confusion, impaired judgment, loss of personality, and emotional instability. These harmful effects worsen and some become permanent as routine treatment progresses.
   http://www.ectresources.org/

   The S1354 bill appears to give parents a right to informed consent and a right to discontinue treatment, however it is easy for hospitals and courts to deny parents their right to informed consent and to discontinue treatment through involuntary hospitalization. Whether by (so-called) informed consent at the hands of their parents, or involuntarily by court order, children risk permanent and severe brain damage. Neither courts nor parents should have the right to inflict permanent brain damage on children (or on adults).

   No emotional disorder or emotional distress, no matter how severe or intense, and regardless of duration, causes permanent and disabling neurological damage.

   I worked in hospital psychiatry with acupuncture and herbal medicine with excellent results. Acupuncture is known to positively affect the brain by increasing endorphins, leading to a feeling of well-being. Other gentle practices, treatments, and interventions that reduce psychological distress and increase a feeling of well-being are well-known and readily available, such as mindfulness meditation (taught in hospitals, schools and prisons), time spent in nature, physical activity, healthy nutrition, supportive social environment, including a community of peers.

   We should be informing parents of genuinely healing and health-promoting short-term and long-term solutions to their child’s emotional distress, and providing support for families. S1354 is not a suitable or safe answer to the psychological and emotional distress of children.

   Please work compassionately, collectively and speedily to abolish the harmful, inhumane, barbaric and outdated practice of electroshocking human beings.

   Here is a link to my 2011 letter to the FDA regarding electroshock. John Breeding’s detailed discussion of the harm of electroshock is below my letter.

   Sincerely,

   Janna Weiss, PhD, LAc
   New York

   Reply

7. From Clare Cortright.

   Legislators,

   I am a lawyer, a person with lived experience of serious mental illness, and a mental health advocate. Do not pass S1354. It is abhorrent that anyone would even consider legalizing electroshock on the developing brain of a child. We know of the harms of electroshock and like all psychiatric, medical interventions still less than we should about catastrophic consequences we learn of from the irreparably damaged victims. Even a minor has sovereignty as the only person who will actually experience this intervention or live with whatever consequence may come. No doctor, no parent, and certainly not the State of Idaho has a greater stake and interest in the child’s life than they have in their own life. Although I am a resident of California, we are watching. And we are increasingly speaking out about the barbarities being inflicted on people with mental illness or alleged to have it.

   I am frequently contacted by and quoted in the national press – recently the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Guardian, Axios, Mother Jones, Politico, etc. concerning mental health policy and law, and I’d be happy to talk about this too.

   Clare Cortright, Esq.

   Reply

8. This is the e-mail Susan Rogers sent.

   To whom it may concern:

   I am writing to strongly oppose S1354, which would make it legal to submit children as young as 12 to electroconvulsive treatment (ECT, aka shock treatment). I am the director of the National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse, and I work to provide accurate information to people with mental health conditions. ECT is an extremely controversial procedure that has caused life-changing harm to many. Yet adults who elect to undergo this procedure are not given the opportunity to provide truly informed consent—let alone children.

   Although many believe they have been helped by electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)—in which seizures are electrically induced, usually to treat severe depression—ECT also involves serious risks. In fact, many others believe it has destroyed their lives. The risks—permanent amnesia and permanent deficits in cognitive abilities—have been confirmed by researchers such as Dr. Harold Sackeim, a well-known proponent of ECT, whose 2006 study in Neuropsychopharmacology (www.nature.com/npp/journal/v32/n1/full/1301180a.html) concludes: “This study provides the first evidence in a large, prospective sample that adverse cognitive effects can persist for an extended period, and that they characterize routine treatment with ECT in community settings.”

   Daniel B. Fisher, MD, PhD, testified before the FDA when the agency was contemplating moving ECT equipment from Class III to Class II; this reclassification subsequently took place. Here is a link to Dr. Fisher’s testimony: https://power2u.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/OralRemarksToFDA-1.27.11.pdf

   Please do not allow S1354 to pass and become law. The well-being of many Idahoans depends on your actions.

   Susan Rogers
   Director
   National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse
   https://www.mhselfhelp.org/

   Reply