This School Uses Electric Shocks on Students. Now a Court Says That's Totally Fine.

[babylonsister]

This School Uses Electric Shocks on Students. Now a Court Says That’s Totally Fine.
‘THAT HURTS!’
The FDA banned the use of the graduated electrical decelerator last year, but on Wednesday a court vacated that ruling.
Blake Montgomery, Reporter/Editor
Updated Jul. 08, 2021 4:39AM ET / Published Jul. 07, 2021 11:56PM ET


A federal court of appeals ruled Tuesday that the only school in the country that administers electric shocks to students can continue doing so.

The court ruled that the Food and Drug Administration cannot block the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, Massachusetts, from using a device called the graduated electronic decelerator as a “treatment of last resort.” The school serves those with severe disabilities, including many with non-verbal autism who have been ejected from other group homes over harm to themselves and others.

snip//

A similar court case over the graduated electronic decelerator gave rise to a FDA rule banning its use entirely last year. A horrifying video from the center of a resident, Andre McCollins, emerged during a lawsuit. The footage showed McCollins tied to a restraint board and shocked 31 times over the course of seven hours for not removing his jacket when instructed to. He screams “Stop! Stop!” and “That hurts!” in the video and was hospitalized for a month afterward.

A former student at the school, Rico Torres, told NBC earlier this year that Rotenberg teachers wired electrodes to his skin for 24 hours a day for a decade. Torres attended the school from ages 8 to 18, spending the vast majority of his time with a 12-volt battery strapped to his back. Currently, the device is only approved for those over 18.

more...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-judge-rotenberg-center-uses-electric-shocks-on-students-now-a-court-says-thats-totally-fine?ref=home

[Bettie]

1. WTF?

Seriously, what the hell are they doing? Sick.

[hlthe2b]

2. Damn! Send those sadists to the Hague.

I don't underestimate the difficulties in dealing with individuals with the most profound form of autism and the violent behaviors that sometimes accompany it, but this is NOT the way. It is torture.

[Solly Mack]

3. Sick fucks

[MagickMuffin]

4. We are DEVO, I mean seriously adults were doing this back in the earlier part of the century

MK-Ultra comes to mind. These "experiments" using various drugs to harm the people in their care.


Humans can be so cruel to other humans and it truly is sick. These people have a very deep sickness.

[marmar]

5. Unbelievable.

Reminds me of a Law and Order episode

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. Our culture is horrid to the profoundly disabled.

[PatrickforB]

15. Yep. 'Murika is a grate place to live...'

Unless you are:

Old

Poor

Sick

or Different

[ck4829]

7. Most of the people they put in these devices are non-verbal, problem is, Torres can speak just fine

Maybe they should have gotten a perspective from someone who can talk... maybe test it on themselves before they do it?

Torres said that the shocks did not give him what he needed most — help in communicating with others, given his early childhood in a non-speaking home. He still struggles with it.

...

During his time at JRC, Torres said he was one of the youngest people on the device, and one of the few able to speak. He describes it as an isolating, humiliating experience. Torres has been back in New York City for three years now, but said he is still trying to figure out how to function in regular society.

He spent nearly half his life attached to the GED, and much of his living memory. When he finally had his electrodes removed, he said he began having cravings and trouble sleeping.

"My pain tolerance has gone to the point that I can't really feel anything. I get tattoos as a reminder of it," Torres said. "Sometimes all I crave is pain."

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/decades-long-fight-over-electric-shock-treatment-led-fda-ban-n1265546

I feel horrible for Rico Torres, I think the only problem was, he never got to be a child, he never got to socialize, he was just a problem for everyone else to play hot potato with and then he arrived at that "school" where instead of properly socializing him, they, I guess, contained him until he was 18.

[lindysalsagal]

8. Get another judge. And close the school and arrest the administrators.

I thought special ed parents were organized these days!???

[kcr]

17. It's parents who fought for the "treatment"

Desperate parents can be exploited and hoodwinked by charlatans with heartbreaking consequences.

[Xoan]

9. Too bad ...

Daily beast couldn't identify the Court.

[Hoyt]

10. Here is an earlier article that attempts to explain some of the reasons behind this "treatment"

which has to be approved by a local judge:


". . . . . . . Supporters say that the methods used by the center, which serves a mix of children and adults, are the best and sometimes last hope to address some of the most difficult developmental and emotional disability cases in the country. Many students at the center have severe autism spectrum disorders and are non-verbal and dangerously self-harming — some have been kicked out of or rejected by half a dozen other schools and treatment programs.

"The GED is "only used as a treatment of last resort, and its recipients are at risk of grievous bodily harm, or even death, without it," the Judge Rotenberg Center and the JRC Parents Association said in a joint statement. The groups called the FDA ban "arbitrary and capricious" and the GED a court-approved and monitored "life-saving" treatment. . . . . . ."


https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/decades-long-fight-over-electric-shock-treatment-led-fda-ban-n1265546

There has to be a better way, but as the article mentions, heavy drugs are usually the "better way."

"The real torture," Israel said, "is what these children are subjected to if they don't have this program. They're drugged up to the gills with drugs that cause them to be so sedated that they essentially sleep all day."

[Crunchy Frog]

19. Refusal to remove a jacket might cause grievous bodily harm.

Glad they were able to save that guy from himself.

[lsewpershad]

11. Judges?

More like devils.

[Corgigal]

12. Severe disabilities

and since the health adults aren’t trained to assist them properly, they can shock them like criminals? What’s next when this doesn’t work?

[Archae]

13. There was an episode of "Law and Order" like this.

Autism was being "treated" with electric shocks, it wasn't until a student with autism died from this "treatment" that the place was closed down and the head of the place went to jail.

[melm00se]

14. The basis for this ruling

is the concept that the law in question constrained the FDA "by prohibiting it from regulating the practice of medicine".

The court said that part of the law "ensures that once the FDA permits a device to be marketed for one use, health care practitioners have the flexibility to draw on their expertise to prescribe or administer the device for any condition or disease, not just the use the FDA approved—in short, to practice medicine".

The dissent viewed the issue as to whether or not the FDA }can exercise its banning authority in a more tailored fashion".

here is the ruling:
https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/C32A7577ED02127D8525870A00555511/$file/20-1087-1905079.pdf

[MineralMan]

16. Beyond the obvious cruelty of such methods,

there is also another problem. For far more people than you might suspect, being given permission to inflict pain on others can quickly lead to more frequent and severe treatment of those on whom such things are used. Instead of training the subjects to modify their behavior, it is more likely to train some of those supervising such subjects to become sadists who take pleasure in inflicting pain.

Many studies have demonstrated this escalation process. For me, such a thing is unconscionable.

[csziggy]

24. Yes, both the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment demonstrated this principal

The Stanford prison experiment (SPE) was a social psychology experiment influenced by the Milgram experiment that attempted to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers. It was conducted at Stanford University on the days of August 14–20, 1971, by a research group of college students led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo.[1] In the study, volunteers were assigned to be either "guards" or "prisoners" by the flip of a coin, in a mock prison, with Zimbardo himself serving as the superintendent. Several "prisoners" left mid-experiment, and the whole experiment was abandoned after six days. Early reports on experimental results claimed that students quickly embraced their assigned roles, with some guards enforcing authoritarian measures and ultimately subjecting some prisoners to psychological torture, while many prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, by the officers' requests, actively harassed other prisoners who tried to stop it. The experiment has been described in many introductory social psychology textbooks,[2] although some have chosen to exclude it because its methodology and ethics are sometimes questioned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

The Milgram experiment(s) on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants, men from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner". These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.[2]

The experiment found, unexpectedly, that a very high proportion of subjects would fully obey the instructions, albeit reluctantly. Milgram first described his research in a 1963 article in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology[1] and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

[MineralMan]

25. Yes, those two and others make it quite clear.

What I find strange is that people are still using those studies to guide them, rather than to avoid such situations. Strange, but not surprising. There is an authoritarian bent in our society that is held by many, many people. Some denominations of Christianity, too, are very legalistic and harsh in judgment and methods. Calvinists come to mind.

My academic study of psychology occurred in the mid to late 1960s, just when such studies were appearing. Skinner's ideas, as well, were part of the curriculum. I remember deciding that psychology was not an area I wanted to pursue. It seemed unscientific, really, and too quick to accept ideas that were abhorrent to me. So, I moved on to other disciplines.

[csziggy]

27. Yeah, in the early 1970s B. F. Skinner's work was being pushed at the liberal arts college I attende

I found his concepts somewhat bizarre but never delved deeply into them.

On the other hand I was raised by Calvinist Presbyterians and my mother by Baptists. I know that authoritarian bent all too well.

[world wide wally]

18. That is actually "INSANE"

[Crunchy Frog]

20. A school like that basically becomes a giant Stanford Prison Experiment.

[Marrah_Goodman]

21. WTF..

[lpbk2713]

22. Dr Mengele lives on.

I would expect this of some other places but not Massachusetts.

[Ilsa]

23. Maybe the judges should be rigged, and

whenever they come to a stupid-ass decision, we can shock them.

I'm going to have nightmares.