ect.org note: This article is appearing in numerous publications and websites, so to avoid repeating the same information again and again, an ongoing list of publications will be posted below. ----------- Forbes Electroconvulsive Therapy Causes Permanent Amnesia and Cognitive Deficits, Prominent Researcher Admits 12.21.06, 3:38 PM ET NEW YORK, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a stunning reversal, an article in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology in January 2007 by prominent researcher Harold Sackeim of Columbia University reveals that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) causes permanent amnesia and permanent deficits in cognitive abilities, which affect individuals' ability to function. "[T]his 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," ... (more...)

Added: Dec 22, 2006 5:05 pm | 37 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Linda Andre's new book scheduled for 2008 publication If you visit ect.org next year, expect that I'll be promoting Linda Andre's new book! And you'd better plan on buying. Her book was purchased this week by a major publisher! This book will shed light on an industry that has fed on a plague of self deception, of defensiveness, and of outright lies. Might as well put the shock industry on official notice: the chipping away at your ivory wall continues. This time, Ms. Linda Andre will be wielding a jackhammer. I confess I've had a peek, and the writing is stunning. That's not a surprise to me and won't be to anyone who knows Linda's skills. It may be a surprise to the "gang" ... (more...)

Added: Mar 11, 2007 11:04 pm | 3 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

MindFreedom.org has a blog and has been documenting the ongoing Eli Lilly legal challenges: MindFreedom Blog Next blog is from the makers of the film "Side Effects," and includes news about the pharmaceutical industry. I'll soon be viewing and reviewing their new film "Money Talks - Profits Before Patient Safety." The trailer intrigued me and this looks like it could be a dandy! Mo Productions

Added: Feb 14, 2007 12:21 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Monsters and Critics Americas Features CIA brainwashing victims seek Canada court action By James Stairs Jan 19, 2007 Montreal - In a case that sounds like science fiction, a Montreal court is deciding whether a class action lawsuit can be brought against the Canadian government on behalf of more than 250 psychiatric patients who were unwittingly subjected to radical experiments in the 1950s. The so-called MK-ULTRA tests were part of a secret mind-control programme funded by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Canadian government in the 1950s. The Cold-War-era experiments, carried out by a Scottish doctor in Montreal, included forced isolation, induced-comas, electro-shock therapy and the use of hallucinogenic drugs, including LSD and paralysis-inducing narcotics. Lawyers for Janine Huard, a 78-year-old great-grandmother, told a Montreal court ... (more...)

Added: Jan 23, 2007 3:32 pm | 4 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Oct 7 2005 By James Glover, Liverpool Echo MEDICAL chiefs were never warned that killer doctor Abdalla Eltom was suffering mental problems. The Sudanese surgeon was yesterday locked up indefinitely after he admitted killing his children's nanny at the family home in Park View, Thornton. Liverpool crown court heard the 52-year-old surgeon strangled 48- year- old Premawatnie Dolamullage with a necktie after he stopped taking medication for a mental disorder. Father- of- three Eltom worked in the casualty department of Ormskirk general hospital, but gave up his job suffering from severe depression after he sent home a patient in April 2002 who later died. But the General Medical Council (GMC), the body which licences doctors and surgeons to practise in Britain, would not necessarily have been ... (more...)

Added: Jan 11, 2007 5:32 pm | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Editor's note: This man, who committed suicide after a workplace accident, had ECT just three months before his suicide. According to an ect.org editor in the UK, the employer's lawyers originally considered pursuing the hospital, but changed their minds. ------------------- Corr v IBC – Court of Appeal Judgment. Date:     19 Sep 2006 Text     Corr v IBC – Court of Appeal Judgment. LANDMARK JUDGEMENT IN THE COURT OF APPEAL FOR SUICIDE VICTIM The claimant was a Maintenance Engineer employed by IBC. He sustained injuries as a result of an accident at work on 22 June 1996. He was almost decapitated, in the event he sustained severe head injuries, underwent several operations including the reconstruction of his right ear, he suffered tinnitus, severe headaches, Post-Traumatic Stress ... (more...)

Added: Jan 11, 2007 5:28 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

By Graham Keeley in Barcelona 28 December 2006 The Independent In the dying days of General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, Antoni Ruiz found out for himself what thousands of others had already suffered for being gay. Antoni, then just 17, from Valencia, eastern Spain, told his mother he was homosexual and his family sought advice from a nun. "She went straight to the police and I was arrested and sent for trial," said Mr Ruiz. "I spent three months in prison. I was raped there and in the police cells and psychologically tortured by both the guards and the prison doctor." Now, 31 years later, Mr Ruiz and a dwindling band of others who suffered General Franco's ruthless repression of homosexuals, may finally be offered compensation by ... (more...)

Added: Dec 30, 2006 11:42 am | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

350 former psychiatric patients to seek compensation from government Oct. 6 2006 New Zealand Radio The lawyer for 350 former psychiatric patients seeking compensation from the government says there's no difference between his clients and another set of patients who have already been paid substantial compensation. The 350 claim they were mistreated at State-run mental asylums in the 1960s and 70s. Their accounts of abuse are similar to those of former patients at the Lake Alice psychiatric hospital, who are sharing $6.5 million in compensation paid in 2001. About 200 of the group have already lodged legal claims; and more are expected to do so, saying they suffered physical and sexual abuse. They also say electric shock treatment was used as a punishment. Govt stance The new group's ... (more...)

Added: Oct 5, 2006 5:49 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Shock Treatment: Efficacy, Memory Loss, and Brain Damage – Psychiatry’s Don’t Look, Don’t Tell Policy by Richard A. Warner This downloadable paper was written by a paralegal in an ECT case that is currently on appeal. He researched the subject for two years, and decided to put that research to use, in this paper. Shock Treatment: Efficacy, Memory Loss, and Brain Damage PDF: 300k

Added: Sep 26, 2006 11:16 am | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

M E M O R A N D U M September 21, 2006 A New York State intermediate appellate court, the Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, has rejected a challenge by MHLS to a lower court order authorizing involuntary electro-shock treatment of Simone D., a patient at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, a state hospital in Queens, New York. The Appellate Division, in its 3-to-2 September 19, 2006 decision, Matter of Simone D. (Anonymous), affirmed the lower court, with a strong dissent by two justices. The trial court's order had authorized the administration of up to 30 shock treatments over a period of six months, with the frequency to be determined by the hospital's "ECT team." Simone D. previously had been given at least 148 shock treatments over her objection by Creedmoor under ... (more...)

Added: Sep 26, 2006 11:06 am | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

[*1] In the Matter of Simone D. (Anonymous), appellant; Kathleen Iverson, etc., respondent. 2005-11405, (Index No. 501166/05) SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE DIVISION, SECOND DEPARTMENT 2006 NY Slip Op 6574; 2006 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 10885 September 19, 2006, Decided THIS OPINION IS UNCORRECTED AND SUBJECT TO REVISION BEFORE PUBLICATION IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS. COUNSEL: Mental Hygiene Legal Service, Mineola, N.Y. (Kim L. Darrow and Dennis B. Feld of counsel), for appellant. Eliot Spitzer, Attorney-General, New York, N.Y. (Michael S. Belohlavek and Patrick J. Walsh of counsel), for respondent. JUDGES: STEPHEN G. CRANE, J.P., DAVID S. RITTER, GLORIA GOLDSTEIN, REINALDO E. RIVERA, MARK C. DILLON, JJ. RITTER, RIVERA and DILLON, JJ., concur. CRANE, J.P., dissents with memorandum, in which GOLDSTEIN, J., concurs. OPINION: DECISION & ORDER In a proceeding ... (more...)

Added: Sep 26, 2006 10:56 am | 2 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Tuesday August 29, 2006 By Martin Johnston New Zealand Herald Former New Zealand psychiatrist Dr Selwyn Leeks has been ordered to pay $55,000 in damages for sexually abusing a former patient. The payment was ordered by an Australian court which found that Dr Leeks "took advantage ... of a disturbed psychiatric patient". The 77-year-old is also being investigated by New Zealand police over claims by former child and youth patients that he abused them at Lake Alice Hospital near Wanganui in the 1970s. He escaped a potentially damning disciplinary hearing before the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria last month by effectively surrendering his medical licence in return for the case being shelved. A five-year investigation into ... (more...)

Added: Aug 31, 2006 12:04 pm | 3 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Patient abused by Leeks awarded $A55,000 29.08.2006 Wanganui Chronicle A VICTORIAN County Court judge last week awarded a woman $A55,000 in damages after finding that psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks had taken advantage of her for his sexual gratification. The woman was a psychiatric patient, The Melbourne Age reported. Dr Leeks headed the Child and Adolescent Unit at Lake Alice Hospital, near Bulls, from 1972-77. Australian judge Jim Duggan said the controversial doctor’s behaviour was reprehensible and a gross dereliction of duty. The patient, whose history includes physical and sexual abuse and psychiatric illnesses, saw Dr Leeks about eight times in 1979 or 1980. During the consultations, which became increasingly more sexual, he fondled her breasts and digitally penetrated her. Dr Leeks claimed he had no recollection of the woman ... (more...)

Added: Aug 30, 2006 8:11 pm | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

NEWS Journal editor quits in conflict scandal Neuropsychopharmacology's chief steps down after a paper he co-authored omitted significant financial disclosures By Stephen Pincock [Published 28th August 2006 05:28 PM GMT] The editor of a leading psychiatry journal announced last Friday (August 25) that he was stepping down after he published a paper about a treatment for depression without disclosing that eight of nine authors--including himself--had financial ties to the company that makes the device. Charles B. Nemeroff, editor in chief of Neuropsychopharmacology, a publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), will not serve another term as editor, the college told its members in an Email. The decision was made "in part, based on the recent adverse publicity to the journal and the ACNP," the Email ... (more...)

Added: Aug 29, 2006 11:05 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Here are a number of clips from the videotaped deposition of Harold Sackeim (2004). Sackeim was the expert witness for Mecta in a lawsuit in California. You can read most of the deposition here, in PDF format. I'm splitting the videos into two pages to reduce your load. If the page loads slowly, or the videos don't load, try again in thirty minutes...it's likely YouTube is down. Richard Abrams is defensive, says Harold Sackeim Harold Sackeim, king of ECT, discusses his complaints about Richard Abrams, president of Somatics, Inc., saying that Abrams is defensive because of the "fascist" groups, and goes too far with his defensiveness by ignoring the "problems" inherent with ECT. Meow! [gv data="G9zm6Cqabc4"width="425" height="350"][/gv] Harold Sackeim tells ... (more...)

Added: Aug 3, 2006 12:21 am | 2 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print