CLEARWATER, Fla., Oct. 31, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- To raise greater public awareness of the harmful and deadly effects of electroconvulsive “therapy”, volunteers and staff of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) Florida chapter amassed over 200 signatures on the first day of the Clearwater Jazz Holiday for a petition to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Acting Commissioner to ban it. The petition, started by CCHR International, has reached over 98,000 signatures, fast approaching its target of 150,000.
Since ECT was developed it has never been required by the FDA to take a single clinical trial to confirm its ‘safety’ and ‘efficacy.’ The result: The death toll of those who have received ECT is 50 times greater than the homicide rate of the United States.
Julie Greene, who received electroconvulsive therapy in 1996, shared her story on the negative effects ECT had on her life on a new blog by CCHR International, TruthAboutECT.org: “ECT had caused the mysterious ‘illness’ that had suddenly befallen me in 1996, when I was 39 years old. I had gone so far as to give the ‘illness’ a name, ‘The Thing,’ because I felt that by doing so the psychiatrists might finally listen, but even that didn’t work.”
Her repeated pleas for answers about her brain were brushed off by McLean Hospital staff by being “told I was ‘attention-seeking,’” said Greene. “They claimed [it was] symptoms of a personality disorder. My complaints of confusion were called ‘dissociation’ which were yet one more ‘symptom.’”
Greene clearly remembers the words of McLean Hospital’s famous psychiatrist, John Gunderson, who told her, “You aren’t even capable of sitting in a room full of people!” This intrigued her because “McLean’s guru, claimed after their ‘cure’ called ECT that I couldn’t sit in a room full of people.” Despite the fact she was a music major and a straight A student.
In order to escape captivity in a state hospital, Greene fled the U.S. in May 2014 for Uruguay. Recently returning, she now participates in anti-psychiatry activism. Since her escape, “I have won several public speaking awards and I do not have ‘stage fright,’” as Gunderson claimed.
“Stories just like Julie’s, or worse, can be found across the Tampa Bay area and the rest of Florida,” said Samuel Guillard, executive director of the CCHR Florida chapter. “We need to make her tragic story one of the last and ban ECT.”
Follow this link to sign the petition: https://www.change.org/p/ban-electroshock-ect-device-being-used-on-children-the-elderly-and-vulnerable-patients and watch the trailer for the CCHR ECT documentary: https://www.cchr.org/ban-ect/.
About CCHR:
Initially established by the Church of Scientology and renowned psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz in 1969, CCHR’s mission is to eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact patient and consumer protections. It was L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, who brought the terror of psychiatric imprisonment to the notice of the world. In March 1969, he said, “Thousands and thousands are seized without process of law, every week, over the ‘free world’ tortured, castrated, killed. All in the name of ‘mental health.’” For more information visit, www.cchrflorida.org
Media Contact:
Diane Stein
President, CCHR Florida
727-442-8820
diane@cchrflorida.org
www.cchrflorida.org