The April / May issue of American Scientist, Volume 88, No. 2, contains an article "Electroshock Revisited" by Dr. Max Fink summarizing the history of and recent advances in the field of ECT, bringing it even farther from the horrors promulgated in cult propaganda. There is a mention of our favorite cult on the upper right of page 164, after mentioning 1972 vice-presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton, the 1975 film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", and evil psychlo :) Thomas Szasz and his student Peter Breggin, "Ron Hubbard, as part of the mission of his Church of Scientology, unleashed a national attack on psychiatry, which is active today in energizing state legislatures to proscribe psychiatric treatments.

Despite a national climate of outrage and vilification, a few psychiatrists continued to use ECT for patients who had failed treatment with medicines and found that their patients benefited.

Reports of such success encouraged manufacturers to improve the treatment devices; scientists again sought ways to improve the practice and reduce the risks; and commissions began to write manuals for proper treatment. By the 1980s, the federal government supported studies of how best to decrease the effects on cognition and memory.

Technical improvements emerged quickly, so much so that in its present use ECT is considered as safe as psychotropic medicines.

Indeed, for the elderly, for those weakened by systemic diseases and for pregnant women with severe mental illnesses, ECT is safer than the alternative treatments."

The article then goes on to detail what these improvements are, such as administering anesthesia and muscle relaxants and placing the electrodes on the forehead. This hardly sounds to me like mad scientists electrocuting people for fun and profit. Then again, it *could* all be an evil alien conspiracy after all...

-- Joe Foster <mailto:jfoster@ricochet.net> Space Cooties! <http://www.xenu.net/>

WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above They're coming to because my cats have apparently learned to type. take me away, ha ha!

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