Electroconvulsive “Therapy” Today: No Regulations, No Scientific Criteria … Just Immense Profits

     Electroconvulsive therapy continues to be a  dangerously unregulated industry and too much about its practice remains shrouded in secrecy.

     The FDA has not tested the safety or the effectiveness of ECT. They only say that they do not rule on “the practice of medicine.” That’s what they call the 460 volts of electricity that passes through an ECT patient’s brain in order to induce a grand mal seizure.

     Of course, every other doctor on the planet is trying to prevent people from having grand mal seizures because of the sudden loss of consciousness and violent muscle contractions that occur from them.

     Thymatron, one of three manufacturers of ECT devices, does write in their product’s safety warning that there is a “risk of death” with their machine. The warning also notes that “Some patients who were suicidal before receiving ECT eventually committed suicide after receiving ECT” from their machine.

     The fact is that for the last forty years there have been no rigorous, placebo based clinical trials testing the safety or the effectiveness of ECT. Those few that had been conducted before 1986 are scientifically questionable.

     There is, however, bona fide evidence since for the severe memory loss and the increased cardiac risks that come from ECT.

     It is estimated that over one hundred thousand Americans – mostly women and elderly – undergo ECT annually, but no one knows for sure. Since the reclassification of ECT devices by the FDA from Class III to II in 1978, some estimates suggest that there has been a 34 percent increase in ECT use, but without any binding regulations, no one is obliged to report any statistics on ECT use.

     Because those institutions and practitioners that deliver ECT do so under the radar of any watchdog agencies or whistleblowers, they can easily violate their patients’ rights by forcing ECT’s brutal voltage on someone…and reap the $300 to $1000 reimbursement for each three minute long ECT session.

     The FDA did rule in 1978 that it is okay to use a Class II Thyamatron ECT device, but only on those who suffer from catatonia or from unresponsive and severe mental disorder.

     There is no proven chemical imbalance or other objective physical evidence behind psychiatry’s three hundred plus mental “disorders” listed in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual …such as catatonia or severe mental disorder.

     However, when a patient is so labeled, usually by a psychiatrist, they are then seen as too incompetent to understand the informed consent procedure, and so they lose their legal right to it. The psychiatrist or family member then approves the 6-12 electroshock treatments that normally constitute the first series of electroshocks for a patient.

     That means that one hundred thousand ECT victims in America every year can have 460 volts run through their brain to induce a seizure with no regulatory oversight and no legal protection, based on what is little more than the whim of a psychiatrist.

     A very wealthy psychiatrist.