(np) found this ...

[Michael Bailey]

while I was looking in the archives for the name of a British comedian
I had posted who gave a wonderful 20 minute monologue about Iraq and
oil...didn't find the name (anybody?)...but I did find this and it was
so good I wanted to post it again

not really Pynchon...it's an anti ECT (electroconvulsive therapy)
speech from a psychiatrist before NY assembly


http://www.ect.org/testimony-of-dr-john-friedberg-to-ny-assembly/
TESTIMONY OF JOHN M. FRIEDBERG, M.D., NEUROLOGIST, BEFORE THE MENTAL
HEALTH COMMITTEE OF THE NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MARTIN LUSTER
PRESIDING NYC, May 18, 2001

 INTRODUCTION My name is John Friedberg. I am a board certified
neurologist practicing in Berkeley, California.

 I was born in Far Rockaway (NYC) in 1942, graduated Lawrence High
School, Yale University and the University of Rochester School of
Medicine and for the past twenty years I've been seeing patients with
every conceivable neurologic problem, from headaches to Huntington's,
in my office and in hospitals. I am in good standing with my
hospitals, professional societies and licensing boards and I'm proud
to say I've never been successfully sued.

 In 1975 I published my book "Shock Treatment Is Not Good For Your
Brain" and in 1979 "Shock Treatment, Brain Damage and Memory Loss," a
peer reviewed article in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

 I do not believe in mental illness.

 Depression is no more "the same as diabetes" than heartbreak is the
same as a heart attack.

I do not believe in hypothetical diseases of the mind but there is no
mistaking damage to the brain. Psychiatric drugs and electroshock
inflict real injury in the name of treating fictive maladies. Paul
Henri Thomas has Tardive Dyskinesia and heptatitis from psychiatric
drugs and amnesia from the ECT.

 BASIS FOR OPINIONS My opinions are based on my years of experience
with patients and review of records from all over the country as an
expert witness electroshock malpractice cases. They are based on ECT
statistics from the six states which mandate reporting; and of
necessity, my opinions are based on a lifetime following publications
and statements issuing from the small but vocal minority of
psychiatrists who believe in ECT and usually nothing but. Fortunately
for me, the believers don't always believe each other; their data
frequently belie their conclusions; and what they actually do
contradicts what they say they do. The truth slips out.

As one example: we have known since the 1950's that confining
electroshock to the non-verbal hemisphere (usually the right as in
"unilateral non-dominant ECT") causes less verbal impairment and
memory loss than bilateral ECT but the recommendation to begin with
non-dominant
ECT is honored mostly in the breach.

Another example: the "grandfather" of ECT, Dr. Max Fink claims the
rate of memory loss is 1 in 200. He has repeated this so often it
sounds like a fact. But Harold Sackeim, Ph.D., just as much an
enthusiast and just as aggressive, says Fink's figure has "no
scientific basis." Who to believe? My view is that memory loss from
ECT is no "side effect;" it's the main effect and the best studies
find it in 100% of subjects. Incidentally, Dr. Fink didn't pick the
number 1/200 out of thin air.

 1/200 has consistently been the death rate from ECT administration -
as far back as 1958 and as recently as Texas and Illinois in the
1990's.

FIVE BIG LIES Big Lie 1: Dr. Fink tells people that ECT is safer than
childbirth. If one out of every 200 women were dying in delivery it
would be front page news.

Big Lie 2: ECT doesn't cause brain damage. One picture will refute
that. The illustration below (MRI on the right, CT left, same patient)
depicts a large hemorrhage from ECT. Hemorrhages, large and small,
cause permanent seizure disorders in some patients. (image snipped by
me - MB) ( Weisberg, L. Elliott, D and Mielke, D: Intracerebral
Hemorrhage Following Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). November 1991,
Neurology V 41 p 1849.) Another MRI study documented a breakdown of
the blood brain barrier and cerebral edema - brain swelling - after
each and every shock. (Mander et al: British Journal of Psychiatry,
1987: V 151, p 69-71)

Big lie 3: ECT is new and improved. The whole point of ECT is to
trigger a convulsion and there is simply no way around the brain's
threshold: 100 joules of energy, a typical "dose," whether brief
pulse, square wave, sine wave, AC or DC, unilateral or bilateral, with
or without oxygen equals the energy it takes to light up a 100 watt
bulb for one second or drop a 73 pound weight one foot. And it's the
energy that does the damage.

Big lie 4: ECT is a "Godsend" (Fink again). In March of this year, Dr.
Sackeim published a study in JAMA showing a "relapse rate" of 84%
within six months of stopping ECT. It is no coincidence that
improvement ceases just as the concussive effects are finally waning.
Sackeim's solution?: more ECT. Call it "maintenance" or call it
"continuation," just don't stop. (JAMA. 2001;285:1299-1307).

Big lie 5: No one knows how ECT works. On the contrary, everyone knows
how ECT works. It works by erasing memory and terrifying people.

CONCLUSION ECT isn't back - it never went away. It's more common than
appendectomy.

What has happened is that its advocates have grown more arrogant and
the number of patients forced to undergo ECT against their will is
increasing. This was brought to public attention by Paul Henri Thomas
fighting for his life and his mind at Pilgrim State Hospital on Long
Island. Over the past two years he has been subjected to 60 shocks and
a judge just ordered up 40 more. The newspapers state the Mr. Thomas
was born in Haiti, emigrated from oppression and was granted American
citizenship.

To be held down, drugged and forcibly administered convulsive dose
after convulsive dose of electroshock to the head: can anyone think of
a greater assault on a human being's rights - short of death - in the
whole world? And it's happening here in the land of the free. That's
not acceptable.


 We have had 60 years of poignant testimony from eloquent victims of
electroshock.

Ernest Hemingway complained it ruined his memory and put him out of
business. He killed himself within weeks of concluding a second course
of ECT. George Orwell ends 1984 with his protagonist being forced to
love Big Brother on an electroshock table.

 I urge you to declare a moratorium on electroconvulsive therapy until
it can be proven safe by evidence, not proclamation. I urge you to
declare a moratorium on electroconvulsive therapy until patients can
be guaranteed free and informed choice. Thank you. -- --


"Frenesi's eyes, even on the aging ECO stock, took over the frame, a
defiance of blue unfadable." (Vineland, Thomas Ruggles Pynchon)