LOS ANGELES: As of April 1, 2003, Medicare will cease all national coverage of “multiple seizure” electroshock treatments, after an investigation revealed the practice is unworkable and places patients at risk. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) conducted the investigation after a December 2001 report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found multiple seizure electroshock had “none of the claimed benefits and many risks,” including “profound confusional states.” The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a psychiatric watchdog that has exposed the brain-damaging and lethal effects of electroshock, hailed the decision as a victory for patients' rights.
Also known as Multiple Monitored ECT (MMECT), Medicare has been paying out $500,000 a year for its use. On February 24 this year, CMS said that Medicare would no longer cover this practice, stating, “The clinical effectiveness of Multiple-Seizure Electro-Convulsive Therapy [ECT] has not been verified by scientifically controlled studies…studies have demonstrated an increased risk of adverse effect…."
CMS also found that in the elderly population, the risk may be “several fold higher” than for “younger patients for severe confusion, falls, and cardiorespiratory complications.” The elderly are a key market for ECT. In Texas, one of the few states that keeps track of shock statistics, 65-year-olds get 360 percent more ECT than 64-year-olds because Medicare coverage takes effect at sixty-five.
Ms. Jan Eastgate, the international president of CCHR, says that electroshock treatment involves “searing the brain with more volts of electricity than you'll find in your home. Between 180 to 460 volts of electricity sends a current pulsing through the brain creating a 'grand mal' seizure, which is identical to an epileptic fit. The administering psychiatrist usually looks for a curling up or twitching of the toes to determine if the shock has 'worked.' Without this sign, multiple electric shocks have been given until the desired effect is achieved. Today, MMECT can induce up to eight seizures in one treatment."
Electroshock has always been controversial, considering its origins arose out of Italian slaughterhouses. In 1938, Dr. Ugo Cerletti, head of the psychiatry department at the University of Rome, observed how pigs were prepared for slaughter using electroshock, which eased the job of slitting their throats. He was inspired, and began experimenting with electroshock on humans. Broken bones and fractured vertebrae that resulted from the convulsions appeared to be of little concern.
In the 1960s, psychiatrists added muscle relaxants to modify the assault on the body. Today, the administration of ECT is a $3 billion a year industry in the United States with more than 100,000 Americans undergoing it, many involuntarily. Yet, a 2001 Colombia University study found ECT is so ineffective at ridding patients of their depression that nearly all of those who receive it relapse within six months of stopping treatment.
Eastgate says, “The fact that Medicare will no longer cover multiple seizure shock treatment is a step in the right direction. But it should apply to all ECT procedures. It will take government intervention because psychiatrists will never admit their cashcow practice harms. It's only because of groups like CCHR that it can no longer be given at psychiatric whim."
With over 130 chapters around the world, CCHR has been able to secure the right for patients to be fully informed about the risks of ECT, and in the U.S., states have banned its use in children.
Published: February 26, 2003
Author: Marla Filidei
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. Contact CCHR's Media Department at 800-869-2247 or humanrights@cchr.org.
