madness network news 16 December 1994
— PLEASE REDISTRIBUTE
Cyber-product of Dendron News, the voice of Support Coalition
chrp@efn.org
“FORCE, FRAUD AND FEAR” SAID TO BE ACCOMPANYING THE RECENT UPSURGE IN USE OF ELECTROSHOCK (E.C.T.)
RIGHTS ACTIVISTS CALL ON THE PUBLIC TO “ZAP BACK” BY E-MAILING A CLINTON ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL
For approximately 15 years, the psychiatric industry has assured the public that atrocities seen in the Academy Award winning film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” are now a thing of the past, due to supposed new improvements in the electroshock device and procedure, and supposed new safeguards of human rights.
Partly as a result of this shock industry public relations campaign, the use of “electroconvulsive therapy” (E.C.T.) — which involves administering electricity through the brain — is rapidly increasing.
“The comeback of electroshock has brought with it the familiar companions of force, fraud and fear,” claims David Oaks, co- coordinator of Support Coalition, an alliance of 30 grassroots human rights groups. Early in 1994, Support Coalition helped organize protests and public education to save Lucille Austwick from forced electroshock. Lucille is an 81-year-old Chicago-area nursing home resident who won national headlines with her fight.
While Lucille was saved, many others are not, and are receiving forced or coerced shock. Throughout 1994 Support Coalition has lobbied the Clinton administration to warn them of human rights violations linked to shock. The Clinton administration response to these alerts has been, says Support Coalition, “short- circuited.” In 1995, Support Coalition is targeting these three violations:
1. FORCED ELECTROSHOCK, against the expressed wishes of the subject, is an established, “legal,” documented fact of life throughout the U.S.A., Canada and Europe. “Loopholes in state law allow involuntary electroshock,” said Oaks. “We’ve sent hundreds of letters, postcards and petitions to U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala about this. H.H.S. reaction has been to appoint a liaison to respond to us. This liaison, psychiatrist Melvin Haas, has actually ENDORSED forced electroshock! We’ve discovered Dr. Haas is himself a shock doctor who has used flawed informed consent!”
The agency head who assigned Dr. Haas to this issue is Dr. Bernie Arons, a psychiatrist who heads the enormous U.S. Center for Mental Health Services (C.M.H.S.). Despite public boasts that he believes in “consumer empowerment,” Dr. Arons has repeatedly endorsed forced electroshock both in a letter, and in public and private meetings, at least one of which was videotaped. Ironically, among the agencies Arons oversees are the U.S. Community Support Program (which funds “consumer empowerment” projects), and the federal “Protection & Advocacy” agency (which is mandated to fight “mental health” human rights violations). Arons has admitted in the press to close ties with industry’s American Psychiatric Association.
*************************************************************
ZAP BACK ACTIONS: E-mail polite requests to Dr. Bernie Arons that: (a) Dr. Arons assign a new liaison to this issue, other than Haas, and (b) Dr. Arons admit that forced electroshock is not very “empowering,” and in fact is an atrocity nearly the entire “mental health consumer” and “psychiatric survivor” movements have united to oppose.
E-mail Dr. Bernie Arons NOW: barons@aoacmhs1.ssw.dhhs.gov E- mail a copy of your message to Support Coalition: chrp@efn.org
Also, your far & wide redistribution of this alert (called a _ Dendrite_) via the Internet is very important. (Details at the end of this Dendrite.)
*************************************************************
2. SHOCK FRAUD. The four U.S. manufacturers of electroshock devices have claimed their “kinder & gentler” machines give milder shocks. Since all other “improvements” are cosmetic (such as anesthesia, muscle-paralyzing drugs, etc.), this is the key to their P.R. campaign.
A new article by researcher Doug Cameron, published in the _ Journal of Mind and Behavior_, reveals that the newer devices are usually used to give far greater actual electrical energy (or _ joules_) than earlier shock devices. Also, far higher electricity is given in most modern shocks than is actually needed to induce a convulsion.
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has never “opened the box” to investigate shock device safety, despite a legal mandate to do so for 15 years. The F.D.A. has been busy targeting vitamins, etc.
“Juice boosting” in shock devices is consistent with neurologists’ hypotheses about shock, namely that any “improvement” is the temporary result of a “head injury high” similar to those seen in stroke and car accident survivors. Closed head injury frequently produces amnesia, denial of problems, compliance and sometimes giddiness or even euphoria. After about four weeks, double blind sudies show shock’s “head injury high” usually passes. This leaves cumulative, frequently- permanent brain damage and memory loss.
Because of the high relapse rate after shock, some shock doctors use “maintenance outpatient E.C.T.,” a sort of “drive-through shock.”
Cameron has identified seven secret “juice boosting” methods used by shock manufacturers in modern shock devices to “compensate” for modern “improvements” and/or surpass older shock devices’ output:
(a) Frequency is increased,
(b) Current is increased,
(c) Duration is increased,
(d) Wave lengths can be increased,
(e) Alternating current is used,
(f) Much higher voltages are utilized, and
(g) Constant current and continually-increasing voltages are used.
The bottom line, states Cameron: The standard old “sine wave” shock devices could light up a 60 watt light bulb for up to ONE second. But MODERN “brief pulse” shock devices can light up the same 60 watt light bulb for up to FOUR seconds. The new capacity to give longer-duration electroshock is frequently utilized.
Some shock doctors are also giving an experimental form of shock, Multiple Monitored E.C.T. (M.M.E.C.T.), which involves giving several jolts per session, to form a cascading continuous convulsion.
*************************************************************
ZAP BACK ACTIONS: Obtain Cameron’s article, and prepare for simultaneous protests of shock facilities and four shock manufacturers 14 July 1995. Periodic vigils, even small ones, in front of “shock shops” are encouraged. Inside the U.S.A., lobby F.D.A. and Congress. Outside the U.S.A., lobby your regulators. E-mail Support Coalition for more details:chrp@efn.org
*************************************************************
3. SHOCK FEAR. If you thought installing unneeded furnaces in the homes of older people was a major scam, check out shock fraud. Shock doctors routinely use lies, threats, deception and cover- ups to coerce individuals — usually older women for “depression” — to receive their shock. Support Coalition calls this “elder abuse.” The shock industry calls it “highly profitable.”
Individuals are told they have no resort other than electroshock, that they may die without shock. No studies uphold these statements.
In a national study of “informed consent” written materials and videos shown to subjects before electroshock, Support Coalition discovered 100% of them cover-up hazards. A new Texas law to regulate electroshock has uncovered revelations that far more deaths are associated with electroshock than claimed by the shock industry.
Shock subjects are also not informed of the high frequency of long-term memory loss, nor of more effective, humane, sustainable alternatives for emotional support, which are helping many today. The U.S. National Institutes of Health, in a Consensus report on shock, cited a study that more than half of those receiving shock attribute memory problems to shock more than three years later.
*************************************************************
ZAP BACK ACTIONS: For all three of the above violations, Support Coalition asks you to brainstorm leads & to contact interested Congresspeople & their health issue aides (both in-district & D. C.). Support Coalition has volunteer lobbiests prepared in D.C. to visit your leads. E-mail your actions & suggestions: chrp@efn.org
The current focus of Support Coalition’s campaign is Dr. Philip Lee, Shalala’s Assistant Secretary, who oversees several of the agencies involved in shock violations, and is said to support disability rights. For instance, Dr. Lee oversees both F.D.A. & C.M.H.S./S.A.M.S.H.A. After you write or fax him, please especially encourage your Congressperson & their health issue aides to also contact Dr. Lee:
Dr. Philip Lee, Assistant Secretary of Health & Human Services 200 Independence Ave., SW 716G Washington, D.C. 20201 U.S.A. Phone: (202) 690-7694 Fax: (202) 690-6960.
*************************************************************
WHO’S BEHIND THIS DENDRITE?
A Dendrite is an electronic “madness network news” from one of the main groups in the independent psychiatric survivors liberation movement. For 20 years, in the family of social change movements, psychiatric survivors have been the ignored aunt way up in the attic.
Dendrites originate from the main office of Dendron News, the voice of Support Coalition, in historic Growers Market, Eugene, OR, U.S.A., the heart of the Cuckoo’s Nest underground nonviolent resistance.
Support Coalition has been called the “Greenpeace of Mental Health.” Support Coalition is a grassroots action-based non- profit alliance, founded in 1990, open to the public, led by survivors of psychiatric human rights violations. [In the interests of clarity, please note that Support Coalition has ABSOLUTELY ZERO links to the better-known critics of psychiatry, Scientology and their off-shoot C.C.H.R.]
Support Coalition is as grassroots as it gets. That’s why it’s crucial you help break the silence about these issues. ZAP BACK NOW!
Cyber-product of Dendron News, the voice of Support Coalition.
Redistribute it freely in cyberspace & urge others to do the same. PLEASE — you can “snow-ball” this complete Dendrite now. It’s helpful to e-mail both our Dendrite coordinator & Support Coalition’s main office about your redistribution: Dendrite coordinator: kgoldberg@bbs.sd68.nanaimo.bc.ca main office: chrp@efn.org Volunteers interested in assisting this campaign are encouraged. Please also print, copy & post hard-copies for off-net access.
Please e-mail now to get your free future electronic Dendrites, to find out how to receive the award-winning Dendron News, and to join Support Coalition as an individual and/or a group. Ask about Dendron’s “HEAL NORMALITY NATURALLY” campaign.
e-mail: chrp@efn.org 24-hour voice mail: (503) 341-0100 s-mail: Dendron; PO Box 11284; Eugene, OR 97440-3484 U.S.A.