From Psychiatric News (I didn't know the CCHR was so active!) http://www.psych.org/pnews/99-04-16/ect.html Campaign Led by Arizona DB Successful In Getting Anti-ECT Legislation Killed April 16, 1999 A controversial bill that would have funded a $60,000 study of how psychiatrists in Arizona use electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been derailed, partly as a result of the combined efforts of the Arizona Psychiatric Society (APS) and the Arizona Medical Association with support from APA. The ECT study bill, which originally started out as a bill to regulate ECT closely but was watered down, passed the Arizona House of Representatives in early March on a 31-28 vote. The original legislation was promoted by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, an antipsychiatry organization affiliated with the Church of Scientology, according to Katherine Becker, J.D., APA's deputy director for state affairs in the Division of Government Relations. When the bill reached the state Senate, Senator Sue Grace, who chairs the Senate Health Committee, to which the bill was assigned, refused to schedule the bill for a hearing, according to APS President Glenn Lippman, M.D. Prior to deciding to bottle up the bill, Grace met with APS representatives and representatives of the Arizona Medical Association, the Arizona Hospital Association, and the state's largest health care provider, Samaritan Health Services, all of whom expressed opposition to the legislation, according to Lippman. When supporters of the bill learned what had happened, however, they "redoubled their efforts to find an alternative vehicle for the legislation," Lippman told Psychiatric News. Supporters then went back to the state House and attached the bill as an amendment to another piece of legislation. On March 25 the House Federal Mandates and States Rights Committee failed to move the bill from committee on a 3-3 vote. APS reacted quickly to these new efforts by distributing a letter and fact sheet to every Arizona state senator, said Lippman. "Until that gavel goes down we intend to be available and to meet the challenge posed by the bill's supporters," he added. Although the bill would not impose restrictions on psychiatrists, the APS and allies view it as a first step toward singling out a well-established medical procedure for legislative control, said Lippman. Further, the study "would be statistically meaningless given its design and the limited number of [ECT procedures] performed [in Arizona] each year," he commented. The so-far successful effort to derail this bill is an appropriate response to legislation that would open the door to an eventual ban on ECT, said APA's Becker. As has been the case with other district branches that have fought unreasonable state legislation, "the APS is confronting extremists whose ultimate goal is to ban ECT," said Becker. "Under the guise of patient safety, these proposed restrictive requirements for ECT would have the distinctly anticonsumer effect of denying patients access to a needed and medically appropriate treatment. Drawing upon resources throughout APA, APS President Lippman has done an outstanding job of mobilizing opposition to this legislation." Related Web sites for this story are APS at http://www.azpsych.org; APA, http://www.psych.org

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