Linda Andre’s New Book, “Doctors of Deception: What They Don’t Want You to Know About Shock Treatment,” Just Out From Rutgers University Press!

If you buy and read only one book on ECT, this should be the one. Andre is not only a survivor of ECT, but has spent the past 25 years listening to, and documenting the experiences of, other survivors. With her exhaustive knowledge of what passes for scientific research on the subject, and an insider’s knowledge of the politics behind that “science” as well as the pronouncements of supposedly trustworthy authorities like the FDA, no one is more qualified to demolish the claims of the shock industry. Andre does so with thoroughness, style, and even wit. Everything she says is documented, but never before has all this information been gathered in one volume.

The book vividly brings to life the multifarious personalities who have battled over ECT–what it is, what it does, what should be done about it. As she says, no fiction writer could have dreamed up such characters. Her description of the decades-long battle between ECT survivors and organized psychiatry over whether shock should be investigated for safety is particularly riveting. That story is published here for the first time. Andre explores why and how the media is biased towards shock (with painful examples from her own experience); explains why forced shock is more prevalent today than before laws which were supposed to ensure choice; tells you exactly why the ECT research you pay for with your tax dollars can’t be trusted; and takes apart every plank of what she calls the industry public relations script to show that every one is a lie.

If you ever wondered how the shock industry has gotten away with damaging brains for profit for over seventy years—and how it continues to do so successfully and with supreme arrogance—this book is the answer to that question.

From the publisher:

DOCTORS OF DECEPTION: What They Don’t Want You to Know about Shock Treatment (Cloth $26.95, 978-0-81354441-0, February 2009) by Linda Andre is the first history of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), or shock treatment, to consider the controversial procedure in a social, legal, financial, medical, and moral context. Through the investigation of court records, medical research, FDA archives, and other primary sources, Andre shows that claims of safety and efficacy made by doctors who promote and profit from ECT are not supported by science or evidence. She reveals how the shock industry and organized psychiatry abused public trust and waged a masterful, multi-decade public relations campaign to improve ECT’s image, deceiving the media, the government, and the public about its risks while exploiting negative stereotypes of mental patients to silence survivors.

DOCTORS OF DECEPTION documents the struggles of these former patients and their allies who have worked for over thirty years to inform others about the dangers of ECT, and includes vivid firsthand accounts of its permanent adverse effects on memory and cognition. Meticulously researched, DOCTORS OF DECEPTION builds a solid case that ECT can never be justified scientifically, medically, or morally.

You can buy the book at the Rutgers University Press website,

http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/acatalog/Doctors_of_Deception.html

You can buy it and write reviews on amazon.com and bn.com, and ask your local bookstore to carry it.