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An open letter to medical professionals

April 24, 2019 By Deborah Schwartzkopff

 

Deborah Schwartzkopff ECTJustice.com

When I went into nursing it was with the intention of working in the psychiatric field. It’s ironic now, given what later transpired. I also had a passion for emergency trauma nursing, and thought since they get a high population of mental health patients as well, it was the best of both worlds. I worked level one trauma mostly at facilities such as Denver General, St. Anthony’s in Denver, OHSU, Kaiser Permanente in Denver and others. I give this to you as I know I have nursing peers I worked with that are still around, and may help take issue with electroshock.

I remember some of being a nurse, when I was on the professional side of things.  And, I remember being a patient, impaired by toxic levels of psychiatric drugs and electroshock. On the professional side, around psychiatric patients were the “slurs” and innuendos when a mark was made on the triage board signifying a psychiatric client, and “who would take them?” It was interesting to me, because I knew many of my nursing peers (including myself) had experienced similar issues in one fashion or another.

Are we somehow different from the patient in room “A” whose circumstances have warranted a need for public help? I do not think people understand that based on a current crisis or short-term problem one can end up with a lifetime diagnosis, associated with drugs and possibly ECT. Doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, etc., you may hold a degree and carry a title, but you are still human, and are not immune to these life circumstances.

This brings me to what I wanted to talk about, and that is the rise in suicide among physicians. The rate is now 28 to 40 per 100,000, double that of the general population.1 That translates to one per day.  It is the highest suicide rate of any profession.

As a professional, to be given a psychiatric label, psychiatric drugs, or even ECT will impact your personal and professional career (if people find out). People say they are open and understand mental illness. But, once you have received a psychiatric diagnosis, people by nature, will treat and see you differently in some way. It may not necessarily be negative, but you as a person shift in others eyes.

Our current system has the mentality of “us and them”, verses a level playing field of ”we.” We are all in this together to varying degrees and life circumstances. You just haven’t been identified with some label that matches up with a drug in a clinical trial perhaps?  With a constantly growing list of diagnoses in the DSM, and a drug matched to each diagnosis, soon there will be something for everyone. We take on this new label as gospel. But it is based on reactions to circumstances that can vary day to day. And the diagnosis is based on a given doctor’s perception, that often varies doctor to doctor.

One recent study found 75% of med students and residents were on SSRIs or other antidepressants.2 Doctors could be having a rise in suicide if they are adversely responding to antidepressants which are known to increase or cause suicidal/homicidal ideation.3 They could also fear seeking assistance, because in receiving a diagnosis, they know full well it will impact their career, and how others perceive them. So, alone in their suffering they choose suicide.

Do you see the system you are actually encasing yourselves in now with your own peers? The line is a thin one.  One steps over, and though you carry a title and degree, you are still human and subject to human emotions and experiences. We may not yet fully understand and actually value nor utilize these states that I believe hold great potential and value.

I miss being a nurse. But I cannot understand how the healers I have admired and worked with can remain so silent and complicit around this, knowing full well of mechanism of injury outcomes. I recall once watching from the background, as a trauma was being worked.  I was moved to tears at the beauty of this dance taking place in an effort to save a patient. I was honored to be a part of their team.

I do not feel honored to have been part of it now, with denial of damages and the lack of response and assistance that all other traumatic brain injury survivors have at their disposal. My peers are committing suicide as a direct result not only of TBI outcomes, but because physicians write complaints off as psychiatric in order to protect a very faulty system. After such abuse at the hands of trusted providers, where does one turn for help?

Because everyone is afraid of lawsuits now, the patient suffers and symptoms are minimized or totally ignored. ECT survivors need extensive rehabilitation, but who will write the order listing the reason? Who is not afraid to take a stand as a physician with intent to warn, protect, and not cause harm? We are sorely in need of many now.

You all know full well these outcomes. But because we have a psychiatric history perhaps you feel you can minimize and look the other way? I don’t know. I know as a healer one should do their best to intervene where there is known harm. Your very own peers in medicine are at risk, and it seems many are choosing suicide as the current system keeps one bathed in shame and secrecy.

Based on a given day, with circumstances which may be acute and self-limiting, you are identified with a lifelong mental health label to follow you throughout your life. This is a shame to so limit a human being. I do not think the human SPIRIT will be contained nor identified this way for long. The current medical paradigm is failing. It feels as if a shift is happening in the crisis of the fallout of justice for electroshock patients.

My hope is for an entirely new perspective, a healing perspective where altered and extreme states are valued. Where power and responsibility are returned to the sovereign individual with assistance as needed, and in cooperation.

References

1 . “When doctors struggle with suicide”, National Public Radio, July 31, 2018, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/31/634217947/to-prevent-doctor-suicides-medical-industry-rethinks-how-doctors-work

2. Pamela Wible MD, “75% of med students are on antidepressants or stimulants (or both)”, Sep 4, 2016. https://www.idealmedicalcare.org/75-med-students-antidepressants-stimulants/

3. Peter C Gøtzsche , Professor, Nordic Cochrane Centre, “Antidepressants increase the risk of suicide, violence and homicide at all ages”, BMJ 2017;358:j3697, Sep 3, 2017. https://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3697/rr-4.

 

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: ECT SSRI suicide doctors

“Let’s not go overboard about ECT”

March 5, 2019 By Deborah Schwartzkopff

Peter Breggin, MD
Peter Breggin, MD

By Dr. Peter Breggin, MD in Mad in America

In an internet email discussion among a large group of supposedly enlightened mental health professionals, few came forward to outright condemn or ban ECT. One participant responded to my comments with, “It worries me how this debate gets so polarized. I appreciate Peter’s opposition to ECT. But that doesn’t mean ECT has not ‘helped people’ even though it might be a placebo effect.” Another declared it was “fashionable” to criticize ECT, but all treatments had their pros and cons. Most seemed to agree that “it sometimes works.”

This refusal to say or to accept something polarizing is a hallmark of most so-called reformers in the field of mental health. What about lobotomy—most of which my 1970s campaign stopped? What about insulin coma therapy? The spinning chair? What about freezing baths? What about the bleeding and purgatives? What about all the other atrocities committed by psychiatry on helpless “patients”? Should we never have simply said, “Stop!”?

Some Things Are Worth Polarizing Over

We know enough about the damage caused by ECT to conclude that it would be unethical even to experiment on people (and perhaps even on animals) in search of that person who supposedly might benefit…

Read full article here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Electroshock and the recent lawsuit settlement

December 10, 2018 By Deborah Schwartzkopff

KBOO radio host, Paul Roland, interviews electroshock survivor Michael Sturman and David Potter from Rethinking Psychiatry. What is it like to receive electroshock? What is it like to live afterwards with electroshock induced trauma? What is the significance of the recent legal victory in California over a shock machine manufacturer?

Michael Sturman

Michael Sturman has an M.A. in psychology from the University of Detroit (1969) and practiced psychology for over thirty years in a number of settings. At sixteen he was a patient at a state hospital in Michigan where he received 20-30 bilateral electroshock treatments, and underwent a long and difficult road to recovery. He is now retired, and lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Click here to read accompanying article on KBOO.FM.KBOO Radio

Click the play button below to listen to the program.  A transcript of the program is available here.

https://kboo.fm/sites/default/files/audio/station_content/120518shock.mp3

Filed Under: News

DK Law Group Announces ECT Settlement!

October 21, 2018 By Deborah Schwartzkopff

The following announcement has just been released by the DK Law Group in Thousand Oaks, CA

David Karen, Esq.
David Karen, Esq.

We are pleased to advise of significant positive developments in the litigation against the ECT device manufacturers. As a result of the manufacturers’ failure to comply with FDA regulations and failure to advise of known or knowable risks associated with the administration of ECT, liability can now be established to hold the manufacturers accountable for failing to warn of cognitive impairment and brain damage following ECT.

After a year of rigorous litigation in California, multiple motions to dismiss and a lot of support from remarkable experts assembled from across the country, we are pleased to report that ECT Plaintiffs successfully defeated the last available defense motion for summary judgment. As a result, the most recent litigation was cleared to proceed to trial in the Los Angeles Federal Court. Defendants last efforts to strike Plaintiffs’ experts on “Daubert” challenges were all denied by the Court, deeming Plaintiffs team of experts notably “reliable and relevant” to provide their compelling testimony of brain damage caused by ECT at trial.

The Court effectively ruled as follows in denying the Defense Summary Judgment:

  • A reasonable jury could find that the ECT device manufacturer failed to warn plaintiffs’ treating physicians of brain damage resulting from ECT, leading to the oft-reported and acknowledged symptoms of permanent memory loss and cognitive impairment.
  • A reasonable jury could find that the ECT device manufacturer was in violation of the relevant federal regulations.
  • A reasonable jury could find that Plaintiffs suffered brain damage as a result of ECT.
  • A reasonable jury could find that the ECT device manufacturer caused Plaintiffs’ brain damage through failure to warn their treating physicians of brain injury, or alternatively by failing to investigate and report allegations of brain damage and permanent memory loss to the FDA, so that information would be available to the public.

The evidence secured in the pending litigation has demonstrably reflected that FDA regulations have been blatantly ignored. The duty to “investigate and report” allegations of “serious injury or death” by the manufacturer has resulted in ZERO reported adverse events for over four decades, demonstrating a conscious disregard to comply with reporting obligations.

An assembled cast of accomplished experts in the industry all stepped up to support the ECT Plaintiffs. Including the single most compelling and critical ECT Psychiatrist in the country, the ex-Director of the FDA; the author of the ECT FDA Citizen Petition; and the preeminent NASA/JPL electrical engineer, Plaintiffs were surrounded by some of the greatest experts anywhere — all testifying on behalf of these Plaintiffs that violations of law occurred and establishing that brain injuries were and are caused by ECT.

Nonetheless, throughout the litigation the defense for the manufacturer continued to shirk its responsibility, refusing to acknowledge the flagrant violations in FDA reporting requirements that were at the root of this litigation. Despite decades of complaints of cognitive impairment and disability following ECT, the evidence amassed demonstrated ZERO adverse event reporting on the FDA’s MAUDE database by the Defendant as of the date suit was filed.

While the manufacturers have sought to ignore it for decades, brain damage is the reason now being demonstrated as the cause for the cognitive impairment and memory loss that results after the administration of electroconvulsive shock therapy. All ECT patients are entitled to a warning of that undeniable fact. If that warning is not supplied and an ECT patient suffers the likely brain damage as a result of ECT, those that have sustained lingering cognitive impairment or disability following ECT are entitled to a remedy from the manufacturers who unlawfully failed to warn.

Following the recent favorable rulings, the trial attorneys were able to conclude the matter with a confidential settlement on behalf of these Plaintiffs. The discovery obtained from the FDA and the Defendant themselves has now paved the way for help to continue to be provided to all others that have been injured by ECT so that justice can now be achieved for the world of ECT shock survivors.

If you or a loved one are still suffering from lingering side effects of ECT treatment performed within the last few years, (or were misled/advised that ECT was not the cause of your lingering issues from earlier ECT treatment) our experts have determined that brain damage is the likely cause. While testing is required, if you were not warned of the risk of brain damage or permanent impairment of cognitive ability as a risk that may occur from ECT and would like more information to determine if remedies are available to you, feel free to send the following information to: ect@dk4law.com:

  • Name, Address, Cell # and Email address
  • # of ECT sessions
  • Date of last ECT
  • State of residence
  • Location of treatment
  • Summary of post-ECT complaints and duration
  • Description of any Post-ECT treatment or testing

While the liability and damage evidence secured was compelling for this California trial, laws in all States vary and require individual assessment. Accordingly, don’t wait as statutes of limitation may apply to limit the time in which remedies may be sought.

Ernest Hemingway

Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient.

-Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winning author and ECT victim

Filed Under: News

ECT has no place in modern medicine

October 15, 2018 By Deborah Schwartzkopff

A Mad in America podcast.

MIA Radio interviews Professor John Read and Doctor Sue Cunliffe, participants in the 57th Maudsley debate held at Kings College in London on September 19, 2018.  Being debated was the proposed motion,  “This house believes that ECT has no place in modern medicine”.

Professor. John Read

Professor Read has undertaken several scientific reviews of the literature supporting the use of ECT and Doctor Sue Cunliffe. Doctor Cunliffe was a paediatrician until she herself underwent ECT, after which she became cognitively impaired and found herself unable to continue working in medicine. She now campaigns for the risks of ECT to be made more explicit and to directly address the professional denial of the damage that ECT can cause.

Click the play button below to listen.  Visit MadinAmerica.com to read the accompanying article by James Moore, along with the debate notes of Professor Read and Dr. Cunliffe.

Filed Under: Articles

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Static-Electricity "and the ashes will be blown away from the tops of their heads. It is edict! It is writ!"

Welcome

Welcome to the ECT survivors website.

News & Events

  • Don’t swallow everything you’re told as the truth May 22, 2019
  • Failure to speak out against ECT May 17, 2019
  • Family Secrets May 14, 2019
  • Stop Shocking and Torturing Women – Mad in America May 13, 2019
  • Lou Reed: That Which Does Not Kill Us Can Radicalize Us – Mad in America May 6, 2019
  • An open letter to medical professionals April 24, 2019

Pages

  • After care following electroshock
  • Be a Media Spokesperson for ECT Victims
  • Blog
  • Deborah Schwartzkopff on Electroshock
  • Dr. John Breeding Discusses ECT
  • ECT & Children
  • ECT & Informed Consent
  • ECT Destroys Lives
  • ECT Questionnaire
  • ECT Survivor Kenny on Life After Electroshock
  • ECT Survivor Mary Maddock’s story
  • ECT Survivor Stories
  • FDA’s 2011 Hearings on Reclassifying ECT
  • Info about ECT
  • Is Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Effective?
    by Philip Hickey, PhD
  • Medical Records
  • Neurologist John M. Friedberg on ECT
  • No One Should Be Given Shock Treatment
  • Peter Breggin, MD: Electroshock is Brain Trauma
  • Recommended Reading
  • Resources
  • Whistleblowers

About ECT Justice

ECT Justice was created to help advocate for ECT survivors and their families and to gather and disseminate information about known risks of ECT.  If you are an ECT survivor suffering from post-ECT cognitive deficiencies, please know you are not alone.  By sharing your issues, we are able to continue our efforts toward helping ensure that appropriate warnings of the potential risk of permanent injury gets provided to anyone considering ECT. Together we can make a difference.

Recent Posts

  • Don’t swallow everything you’re told as the truth May 22, 2019
  • Failure to speak out against ECT May 17, 2019
  • Family Secrets May 14, 2019
  • Stop Shocking and Torturing Women – Mad in America May 13, 2019
  • Lou Reed: That Which Does Not Kill Us Can Radicalize Us – Mad in America May 6, 2019
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