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With FOIA data showing children as young as five subjected to electroshock in the U.S., CCHR International condemns calls to override WHO guidance labeling child and non-consensual shock treatment as torture and demands a legislative ban.
LOS ANGELES - CuisineWire -- By CCHR International
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) International, a mental health industry watchdog, has strongly rejected a recent joint statement by the World, European, and American psychiatric associations that advocates the use of electroshock treatment on children.[1] CCHR warns that with children as young as five already subjected to electroshock in parts of the United States, such calls represent a dangerous step and a violation of human rights. The organization calls for a ban on all electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), commonly known as "electroshock."
The psychiatric groups' statement also wants ECT to be forced on individuals who are incapable of consenting or who refuse consent. In alignment with various U.N. conventions, CCHR maintains that any psychiatric practice coercively imposed constitutes torture.
In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) first warned: "There are no indications for the use of ECT on minors, and hence this should be prohibited through legislation."[2] CCHR's Freedom of Information Act requests to U.S. states revealed that in 2018 to 2019, at least six states—Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Utah—allowed children aged five or younger to be electroshocked.
WHO's Department of Mental Health and Substance Use warned of ECT's serious health risks, including brain damage, cardiovascular complications, memory impairment, and even death. The plan states that ECT should be banned for children and that adults should never receive it without written informed consent. In the absence of such consent, ECT should be considered abuse or torture.[3]
Contrary to the psychiatrists' assertion that ECT is life-saving, multiple studies show the opposite. A 2020 study involving over 14,800 ECT patients found they were 16 times more likely to attempt suicide than a matched control group of 58,369.[4] A 2023 study published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica reported that patients who received ECT were 44 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. Another study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found the suicide death rates of veterans to be 137.34 per 10,000 within 30 days and 804.39 per 10,000 within one year following treatment.[5]
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The psychiatric group also disputed that sending hundreds of volts through the brain and body, inducing a grand mal seizure, causes brain damage. They dismiss concerns about the "adverse effects of applying electricity to developing brains" of children.
However, the human brain continues critical rewiring into the mid-20s—long after reaching full size around age 14—making pediatric application particularly concerning. In 2023, John Read, Ph.D., pointed out that after 85 years of ECT use, there had not been a single placebo-controlled study on children or adolescents. The UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) states: "The risks associated with ECT may be enhanced in children and young people."[6]
Neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu—known for discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in football players—has publicly condemned ECT, stating: "The amounts of electrical energy introduced to the human brain by ECT machines can be nothing but harmful and dangerous… The patient who receives ECT therapy will manifest permanent and cumulative brain injury, which can be progressive over time and result in chronic encephalopathies and brain degeneration."[7]
Expert testimony admitted in the Nebraska Supreme Court (2025), as cited in a Global Wellness Forum Stop ECT Coalition report on ECT, concluded that "ECT causes persistent or permanent memory loss and brain damage in a substantial proportion of recipients—between 12% and 55%."[8] Decades of research document brain damage, memory loss, and mortality, while the absence of verified efficacy reflects regulatory negligence.[9]
A 2020 review in Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, co-authored by experts, including Prof. Irving Kirsch of Harvard Medical School and Dr. Read, concluded: "Given the high risk of permanent memory loss and the small mortality risk, the longstanding failure to determine whether or not ECT works "means that its use should be immediately suspended."[10]
CCHR, co-founded by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz, has campaigned against ECT for decades. On August 11, 2025, executives from CCHR International addressed the UN Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), supporting the CRPD's ban on coercive psychiatric practices, including electroshock. CCHR reported how it helped secure the first U.S. ban on ECT for children under 12 in California (1976), in Texas (1993) for those under 16, and in Western Australia (2014), with criminal penalties that include a $15,000 fine and two years' imprisonment if administered to minors.
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Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, says the U.S. ECT industry generates around $3 billion annually—"a lucrative business built on documented harm." ECT is "an act of violence, first developed in 1938 by an Italian psychiatrist who adapted electric shocks used on pigs to stun them before slaughter and applied this to humans. Protecting patients from this violence must be the priority."
Sources:
[1] Zilles-Wegner D, et al., "Joint statement by the World Psychiatric Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the European Psychiatric Association, and the Global Expert Task Force on ECT on the portrayal of electroconvulsive therapy in the WHO Guidance on Mental Health Policy and Strategic Action Plans," 31 Mar., 2026
[2] "WHO RESOURCE BOOK ON MENTAL HEALTH, HUMAN RIGHTS AND LEGISLATION WHO 2005," p. 64, http://www.lhac.eu/resources/library/who_resource-book-on-mental-health-human-rights-and-legislation--2.pdf
[3] "Why Psychiatrists Defend Electroshock Therapy," Süddeutsche Zeitung, 1 Apr. 2026
[4] John Read, Ph.D., Joanna Moncrief, M.D., "Depression: why drugs and electricity are not the answer," Psychological Medicine, Cambridge University Press, 1 Feb. 2022, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/depression-why-drugs-and-electricity-are-not-the-answer/3197739131D795E326AE6913720E6E37
[5] Anders Spanggård, et. al., "Risk factors for suicide among patients having received treatment with electroconvulsive therapy: A nationwide study of 11,780 patients," Acta Psychiatria Scandinavia, 29 Jan. 2023, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acps.13536
[6] John Read, Ph.D., "Is It Time to Ban Electroconvulsive Therapy for Children?" Psychology Today, 17 Dec. 2023, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-through-the-looking-glass/202311/is-it-time-to-ban-electroconvulsive-therapy-for
[7] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/
[8] Global Wellness Forum, Stop ECT Coalition, Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT): Ending the Waste, Fraud and Abuse of a Failed Protocol, https://stopect.com/
[9] John Read, Richard Bentall, "The effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy: A literature review," Epidemiol Psichiatr Soc., Oct-Dec. 2010, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21322506/
[10] "Electroconvulsive Therapy for Depression: A Review of the Quality of ECT versus Sham ECT Trials and Meta-Analyses," Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, July 2020, https://connect.springerpub.com/content/sgrehpp/21/2/64
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) International, a mental health industry watchdog, has strongly rejected a recent joint statement by the World, European, and American psychiatric associations that advocates the use of electroshock treatment on children.[1] CCHR warns that with children as young as five already subjected to electroshock in parts of the United States, such calls represent a dangerous step and a violation of human rights. The organization calls for a ban on all electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), commonly known as "electroshock."
The psychiatric groups' statement also wants ECT to be forced on individuals who are incapable of consenting or who refuse consent. In alignment with various U.N. conventions, CCHR maintains that any psychiatric practice coercively imposed constitutes torture.
In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) first warned: "There are no indications for the use of ECT on minors, and hence this should be prohibited through legislation."[2] CCHR's Freedom of Information Act requests to U.S. states revealed that in 2018 to 2019, at least six states—Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Utah—allowed children aged five or younger to be electroshocked.
WHO's Department of Mental Health and Substance Use warned of ECT's serious health risks, including brain damage, cardiovascular complications, memory impairment, and even death. The plan states that ECT should be banned for children and that adults should never receive it without written informed consent. In the absence of such consent, ECT should be considered abuse or torture.[3]
Contrary to the psychiatrists' assertion that ECT is life-saving, multiple studies show the opposite. A 2020 study involving over 14,800 ECT patients found they were 16 times more likely to attempt suicide than a matched control group of 58,369.[4] A 2023 study published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica reported that patients who received ECT were 44 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. Another study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found the suicide death rates of veterans to be 137.34 per 10,000 within 30 days and 804.39 per 10,000 within one year following treatment.[5]
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The psychiatric group also disputed that sending hundreds of volts through the brain and body, inducing a grand mal seizure, causes brain damage. They dismiss concerns about the "adverse effects of applying electricity to developing brains" of children.
However, the human brain continues critical rewiring into the mid-20s—long after reaching full size around age 14—making pediatric application particularly concerning. In 2023, John Read, Ph.D., pointed out that after 85 years of ECT use, there had not been a single placebo-controlled study on children or adolescents. The UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) states: "The risks associated with ECT may be enhanced in children and young people."[6]
Neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu—known for discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in football players—has publicly condemned ECT, stating: "The amounts of electrical energy introduced to the human brain by ECT machines can be nothing but harmful and dangerous… The patient who receives ECT therapy will manifest permanent and cumulative brain injury, which can be progressive over time and result in chronic encephalopathies and brain degeneration."[7]
Expert testimony admitted in the Nebraska Supreme Court (2025), as cited in a Global Wellness Forum Stop ECT Coalition report on ECT, concluded that "ECT causes persistent or permanent memory loss and brain damage in a substantial proportion of recipients—between 12% and 55%."[8] Decades of research document brain damage, memory loss, and mortality, while the absence of verified efficacy reflects regulatory negligence.[9]
A 2020 review in Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, co-authored by experts, including Prof. Irving Kirsch of Harvard Medical School and Dr. Read, concluded: "Given the high risk of permanent memory loss and the small mortality risk, the longstanding failure to determine whether or not ECT works "means that its use should be immediately suspended."[10]
CCHR, co-founded by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz, has campaigned against ECT for decades. On August 11, 2025, executives from CCHR International addressed the UN Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), supporting the CRPD's ban on coercive psychiatric practices, including electroshock. CCHR reported how it helped secure the first U.S. ban on ECT for children under 12 in California (1976), in Texas (1993) for those under 16, and in Western Australia (2014), with criminal penalties that include a $15,000 fine and two years' imprisonment if administered to minors.
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Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, says the U.S. ECT industry generates around $3 billion annually—"a lucrative business built on documented harm." ECT is "an act of violence, first developed in 1938 by an Italian psychiatrist who adapted electric shocks used on pigs to stun them before slaughter and applied this to humans. Protecting patients from this violence must be the priority."
Sources:
[1] Zilles-Wegner D, et al., "Joint statement by the World Psychiatric Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the European Psychiatric Association, and the Global Expert Task Force on ECT on the portrayal of electroconvulsive therapy in the WHO Guidance on Mental Health Policy and Strategic Action Plans," 31 Mar., 2026
[2] "WHO RESOURCE BOOK ON MENTAL HEALTH, HUMAN RIGHTS AND LEGISLATION WHO 2005," p. 64, http://www.lhac.eu/resources/library/who_resource-book-on-mental-health-human-rights-and-legislation--2.pdf
[3] "Why Psychiatrists Defend Electroshock Therapy," Süddeutsche Zeitung, 1 Apr. 2026
[4] John Read, Ph.D., Joanna Moncrief, M.D., "Depression: why drugs and electricity are not the answer," Psychological Medicine, Cambridge University Press, 1 Feb. 2022, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/depression-why-drugs-and-electricity-are-not-the-answer/3197739131D795E326AE6913720E6E37
[5] Anders Spanggård, et. al., "Risk factors for suicide among patients having received treatment with electroconvulsive therapy: A nationwide study of 11,780 patients," Acta Psychiatria Scandinavia, 29 Jan. 2023, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acps.13536
[6] John Read, Ph.D., "Is It Time to Ban Electroconvulsive Therapy for Children?" Psychology Today, 17 Dec. 2023, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-through-the-looking-glass/202311/is-it-time-to-ban-electroconvulsive-therapy-for
[7] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/
[8] Global Wellness Forum, Stop ECT Coalition, Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT): Ending the Waste, Fraud and Abuse of a Failed Protocol, https://stopect.com/
[9] John Read, Richard Bentall, "The effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy: A literature review," Epidemiol Psichiatr Soc., Oct-Dec. 2010, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21322506/
[10] "Electroconvulsive Therapy for Depression: A Review of the Quality of ECT versus Sham ECT Trials and Meta-Analyses," Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, July 2020, https://connect.springerpub.com/content/sgrehpp/21/2/64
Source: Citizens Commission on Human Rights International
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