Forced to obtain electroshock statistics through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act), CCHR finds states electroshocking those 0–5 and up to age 12. UN defines any ECT without consent as an act of torture—yet this increasingly occurs throughout the U.S.
Statistics on electroshock treatment (ElectroConvulsive Therapy – ECT) usage in the U.S. for 2019 reveals at least four of 27 states reporting ECT use under Medicaid, to children five years of age or younger. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, a mental health industry watchdog, condemns the practice of electroconvulsive therapy, which sends up to 460 volts of electricity through the brain to treat mental issues, saying that its use, especially in youngsters, is simply cruel and brutal. As children are too young to consent, non-consensual ECT constitutes torture, according to United Nations bodies such as its Committee Against Torture. In 2013, it recommended “an absolute ban on all forced and non-consensual” use of electroshock. The World Health Organization made similar recommendations in June 2021.
Electroshock remains a contentious issue because there are no clinical trials that have proven the safety and efficacy of its devices. This is because the FDA grandfathered the device in 1976 as it had been in use since 1938, when an Italian psychiatrist discovered it calmed pigs before they were slaughtered.
Psychiatrists opine that forcing electroshock on an individual to damage the brain is therapeutic and as such harm is redefined as benefit.
Psychiatry, following in the steps of a Russian science, has a basic and brutal assumption which is that a shock cures aberration. It springs from the same impulse that assumes punishment cures wrongdoing. The limited workability of this is apparent around us on every hand. The basic psychiatric assumption that enough punishment will restore sanity is easily disproven.
After 84 years, psychiatrists still admit they don’t know how ECT “works,” yet they still administer it, well aware that it cannot cure—but it can cause serious damage.
MECTA Corp, the manufacturer of two ECT devices could not provide evidence of how ECT works other than its machines are designed to cause a grand mal seizure. Any legitimate medical doctor will tell you that seizures are harmful. In fact, the psychiatric billing bible Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) lists seizures as a mental disorder, yet psychiatrists continue to promote ECT as a “treatment” for mental disorders.
Electroshock is like administering medical blunt force trauma. It should be banned. Sign the petition here to support a total ban on all ECT.
