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 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.

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

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

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.

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

On September 11, 2017, DK Law Group LLP filed a class action in federal court against the manufacturers of Electroconvulsive Therapy devices (ECT) on behalf of every person who has been injured by electroconvulsive therapy in California since May of 1982. The lawsuit is based on traditional state-law negligence principles, and the manufacturers’ failure to comply with their obligations to the FDA.

ECT has been around for nearly eighty years, since about 1938. Since then, the practice has become widespread, even though the psychiatric community has never conclusively established any particular mechanism of action through which ECT treats any type of mental illness.

Medical Device Regulation

Medical devices in the United States are strictly regulated by the FDA under the

• Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act (FDCA),
• Medical Device Amendments of 1976 (MDA),
• and Safe Medical Devices Act of 1990 (SMDA).

The Medical Device Amendments determined that medical devices would be classified into three categories based on their safety and effectiveness.

Devices that present significant risks are classified into Class III, and these devices typically must satisfy a strict “premarket approval” process, which requires that manufacturers provide a strong showing of safety and effectiveness before such devices can be placed on the market.  ECT Devices are classified as Class III.

ECT Devices “Grandfathered in”

When the Medical Device Amendments were passed in 1976, there were many existing devices, including ECT, which were allowed on the market without satisfying the premarket approval standard. Instead, they were “grandfathered in” as devices marketed before the MDA, or devices substantially similar to such pre-amendment devices.

Failure to Report

Despite being granted access to the market, manufacturers of devices that have been “grandfathered in” still must furnish certain information to the FDA. For example, under the MDA and SMDA, such manufacturers must report to the FDA all information reasonably known when their devices may have contributed to a death or serious injury. The “reasonably known” standard is broad, and requires a manufacturer to seek out information pertaining to adverse events resulting from use of their devices, instead of passively waiting for the information to reach them.

The DK Law Group’s lawsuit alleges that the manufacturers of ECT devices failed to meet these requirements, and as a result, placed a dangerous product on the market without an adequate warning.

View text of lawsuit here.

ECT Victims Sought

If you or someone you know has been been injured by electroconvulsive therapy in California, contact DK Law at (805) 498-1212 or by email at ECT@dk4law.com.

In addition, all ECT survivors (whether injured in California or not) are encouraged to fill out the ECT Justice questionnaire.  ECT Justice will attempt to notify you as we learn of opportunities to participate in legal actions in other states and countries.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Attorney Jonathan Emord and his co-counsel Kendrick Moxon have filed a Supplement to their Citizen Petition of August 2016, protesting the FDA’s Proposed Order to reclassify and make more readily available the Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Device used to give “shock-treatment.”  The reclassification would make it easier for doctors to give the treatment.

Shock treatment is well-known as the punishment given actor Jack Nicholson in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  More recently it was portrayed in the TV series Homeland when given to the star, destroying her memory and intelligence. Memory loss and brain damage are the central issue in the attorneys’ filing.

This is shaping up to be a David and Goliath scenario with individuals damaged by ECT on one side and the FDA, under pressure from the industry that profits from ECT, on the other.

Click here to read entire article.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — In December 2015, the FDA issued a proposed order to down-classify the device used to deliver electroshock therapy. Today, Attorney Jonathan Emord filed a Citizens Petition with the FDA on behalf of 5 individuals who were damaged by electroshock.

I hope this is the beginning of the path to do away with shock [ECT]. Hopefully it’ll go the way of lobotomies, another ‘miracle treatment’.
ECT survivor, shocked as a teenager.

Most people surveyed thought electroshock therapy, also called electroconvulsive therapy or ECT, did go the way of lobotomies. In fact, a conservative estimate is that over 100,000 individuals receive electroshock therapy each year in the U.S. Actual numbers are not available because there is no tracking of this.

Click here to read complete article.