The mental health industry watchdog, CCHR, says informed consent is breached every time patients are not warned of the brain damage, long-term memory loss, and cardiac risks, including death, associated with electroshock, per the study.

By Jan Eastgate
President CCHR International
September 26, 2024

A new study has determined that as many as 1 in 15 people who receive electroshock treatment face life-threatening heart problems and that cardiac events are a major cause of ECT-related deaths. John Read, Ph.D., a Professor of Psychology at University College of London, critiqued existing studies of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and cited a 2019 review that he says misrepresented data and falsely asserted that ECT is safe. In reality, cardiac events are the leading cause of death for those subjected to shock treatment.[1]

This critical information must be transparently communicated to patients recommended for ECT, including the risks of permanent brain damage and memory loss. According to Dr. Read’s study, “the ethical principle of informed consent is being routinely breached by ECT psychiatrists.”

For decades, psychiatrists have covered up the serious and potentially lethal effects of ECT, which sends up to 460 volts of electricity through the brain, causing a grand mal seizure. When given without a patient’s consent, the United Nations recognizes it as torture. Indeed, electroshock has no place in mental health treatment and should be banned globally.

According to U.S. expert, Ken Castleman, a biomedical engineer, “ECT stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, which controls many aspects of cardiovascular function. The powerful electrical discharge causes a spike in blood pressure. The intense stress that the ECT-induced seizure places on the heart increases the risk of adverse cardiovascular events, especially in patients who have pre-existing cardiac conditions.”

Further, “People with pre-existing cardiovascular conditions are considerably more at risk of cardiac damage or death than healthy individuals, yet cardiac pre-screening of ECT patients is not widely used. And the risk to ECT recipients is significantly greater than the risk involved with other procedures, such as minor surgery, because ECT patients typically receive a series of 6 to 12 treatments, any one of which could cause serious cardiac problems.”

Dr. Read reports, “The obligation to ensure informed consent is a core ethical principle of all health and mental health professionals.” Yet, “Various official reports, most psychiatric textbooks, and many patient information leaflets have claimed, for decades, that the risk of death from ECT is so rare as to be inconsequential,” including an American Psychiatric Association (APA) ECT Task Force Report on ECT. “It should be noted that six of the eight task force members were directors of ECT services. The group included the incoming and outgoing presidents of the Association for Convulsive Therapy, and three were financially involved with companies manufacturing ECT machines,” Dr. Read wrote.

He further cited the 2023 joint guidance by the World Health Organization/United Nations: “People being offered ECT should be made aware of all its risks and potential short- and long-term harmful effects, such as memory loss and brain damage. ECT is not recommended for children, and this should be prohibited through legislation.”

The death rate is discussed further in the study:

• Of 8,148 ECT recipients in Texas, seven died within 2 days of their last ECT. Even excluding the two that the researchers believed were “unlikely to have been related to ECT,” this is a rate of 1 per 1,630 people. If one includes the additional eight that died, from ‘cardiac events’ in the following 12 days, the rate is 1 per 627.”

• A 2019 review of 43 ECT studies with mortality data, including more than 75,000 patients, calculated that “All-cause mortality was 0.42 deaths per 1,000 patients” This is 1 per 2,380 people, more than four times greater than the official position of the APA of 1 per 10,000.

• The most detailed data came from a Swedish register-based 2023 study. Of 20,225 ECT patients, 123 (0.61%) died of “medical causes” within 30 days of their last ECT. This is one death per 164 people. At one per 413 patients, the 49 cardiac-related deaths represented the most common medical cause of post-ECT death (40%). This was surpassed only by the 93 suicides (1 per 217).  In total, 15 of the 23 patients who died within 24 hours of ECT were cardiovascular deaths.

In 2001, the APA acknowledged that “evidence has shown that ECT can result in persistent or permanent memory loss.” In 2018, the ECT manufacturer, Somatics included “permanent brain damage” in its list of risks.

In the U.S., adolescents and even children five years old and younger have been electroshocked. Dr. Read found “rates of memory deficits in more than two-thirds of child and adolescent ECT patients” that were passed off as “acceptable” and representing a “high level of safety.” Read wrote to the journal stating this: “The use of sufficient electricity, once, on a developing brain, in order to cause a seizure in that young brain, is a very serious matter. To do so five or six times in a few weeks is almost bound to cause brain damage in a significant number of recipients. The average age of these youngsters was just 15.5 years. Most (62 %) were girls. When even the psychiatrists themselves acknowledge that 69 % have impaired memories as a result, this does not indicate a treatment with a ‘high’ degree of safety.”

In 2023, Somatics was the object of the first lawsuit involving severe personal injury allegations against an ECT device manufacturer to proceed to trial (Wisner Baum). The lawyers for the plaintiff report that Plaintiff Jeffrey Thelen alleged that Somatics failed to adequately warn about the known risks associated with its ECT machines, including brain damage, severe permanent memory loss, permanent neurocognitive injuries, and others. After seven days of trial proceedings, the jury in Jeffrey Thelen v. Somatics, LLC found that Somatics failed to warn about the risks associated with its ECT devices.

The main cardiac events Read found are myocardial infarction (heart attack), life-threatening arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), acute pulmonary edema (fluid on the lungs), pulmonary embolism (blood clots), acute heart failure, and cardiac arrest.

In light of these grave risks, CCHR welcomes the recent news that electroshock is nearly on the brink of disappearing due to CCHR’s public awareness campaigns and its documentary, Electroshock: Therapy or Torture.

Addressing that imminent demise was Dr. Harold Sackeim, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University’s Department of Psychiatry, who admits ECT causes memory loss. Amnesia “is the most critical adverse cognitive effect of ECT,” he said. Sackeim serves as a “consultant” to the ECT device manufacturers, and admits that he was paid at least $70,000 in “reimbursement and honoraria” fees for doing so.[2]

“It’s an incredible story that goes back decades,” the “Shock Doc”—a psychologist and major proponent of ECT—said. He considers CCHR’s campaign exposing the dangers of ECT could be “successful at killing an industry.”

It is far better that the multi-billion-dollar electroshock industry be killed off rather than the patients being subjected to it. The current study and many others reflect the ongoing concerns that ECT should be banned.

CCHR has already secured state bans of ECT use on minors, with criminal penalties in West Australia if administered to children. It also had Deep Sleep Treatment (DST), which includes ECT, banned in Australia, which last year the WHO/UN said should be prohibited worldwide.  

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[1] John Read, Ph.D., “Major Adverse Cardiac Events and Mortality Associated with Electroconvulsive Therapy: Correcting and Updating a 2019 Meta-analysis,” School of Psychology, University of East London, London, UK, Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 0, No. 0, 2024, https://repository.uel.ac.uk/item/8xyx0

[2] John Blosser, “Harold Sackeim’s Conflicts of Interest at the Heart of Dangerous Industry of Electroshock,” Freedom Magazine, 12 Sept. 2024, https://www.freedommag.org/news/harold-sackheims-conflicts-of-interest-at-the-heart-of-dangerous-industry-of-electroshock-677814