Minnesota Man Successfully Fights against Forced Electroshock

December 4, 2024

By CCHR International

The Mental Health Industry Watchdog

A Minnesota man, David Russell, 44, has successfully fought against being court-ordered to receive further damaging electroshock treatment.[1] The movement to help Mr. Russell was started by Mind Freedom, an advocacy group independent of CCHR.[2] However, his terrible plight came to the attention of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International through media reports and Mind Freedom’s postings online. As CCHR has a history of exposing electroshock dating back to 1969, it felt compelled to also act.

Mind Freedom and individuals were directly assisting Mr. Russell to oppose an attempt by Regions Hospital in St. Paul, MN, to obtain court-ordered electroshock.

On November 26, 2024, CCHR sent a letter to the Patient Relations department of Regions Hospital to support Mr. Russell, who is currently involuntarily detained at Regions and was facing a December 2nd hearing on Regions’ petition to submit him to involuntary electroshock.

On November 27, Mind Freedom reported Regions Hospital had dropped its Electroshock Petition, but was still going to court seeking to forcibly drug Mr. Russell with Clozaril. Mind Freedom’s post says that about 27 observers were in the court supporting Mr. Russell, and his attorney submitted to the judge that “the hearing shouldn’t even be held, because (1) there is no motion, (2) there was no examiner appointed, (3) the person making the request is not qualified, (4) there is no expert witness…. The prosecutor didn’t have any response to these defects and the judge didn’t go forward with the hearing.” On December 3, Mind Freedom further stated, “We have been informed the hospital is not going to pursue adding Clozaril to the drugs they can force into David and he is going to be provisionally discharged this Friday, December 6th.”[3]

Mr. Russell has a history of mental health issues and received 17 courses of court-ordered shock at the Mayo Clinic earlier this year.[4] He didn’t want more!

According to reports from Mind Freedom, he was terrified of receiving further shocks, and suffered a potentially life-threatening blood clot in his arm in June 2024 following several treatments. He is also horrified by the “results” he’s seen in others, including a patient who could no longer speak after receiving ECT.[5]

In its letter to Regions, CCHR cited numerous United Nations reports that say involuntary, forced electroshock constitutes torture, in alignment with the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the United States has ratified.[6] U.S. courts have acknowledged ECT’s risks to patients, including brain damage, memory loss and cognitive disability.[7]

Emphasizing the torture aspect of ECT relative to Mr. Russell, according to a Mind Freedom report, both the Mayo Clinic and Regions Hospital allegedly informed Russell that they would not proceed with forced shock, if he “behaved.”

As reported by the Mind Freedom webpage on Russell’s situation:

“On November 1st he was told they [Mayo Clinic] are planning to electroshock him against his will again. Now he is being told if he doesn’t misbehave they won’t electroshock him. That certainly sounds like punishment.”[8]

“11/23/24: David was told as long as he remains as stable as he is now (behaves himself), they [Regions Hospital] will let the court hearing play out, but planning on discharging him and not electroshocking him even if the court approves it.”[9]

Ms. Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, has testified in a government hearing into the dangers of electroshock, combined with psychotropic drugs—a practice that was banned due to CCHR’s efforts. She appears in CCHR’s documentary, Therapy or Torture: The Truth About Electroshock, telling of her own story of being given electroshock as a young adult in 1975. Though she’d been prescribed ECT for “depression,” her symptoms turned out to be due to an undiagnosed underactive thyroid condition. “It took years to recover from the effects of this draconian practice that can cause brain damage and memory loss, and I’ve dedicated my life to preventing others, like Mr. Russell, from being subjected to it. He has the right to refuse it. It is an abhorrent practice that should be banned as being a form of electrical torture,” Eastgate said.

Eastgate agreed that this is tantamount to ECT being given as “punishment,” violating the Convention Against Torture.

CCHR’s letter to Regions Hospital put them on notice that coercive psychiatric practices such as forced electroshock have been condemned internationally and that ECT’s risks to patient health are well-acknowledged in the courts.

This letter was not sent based on a request to CCHR from Mr. Russell but is CCHR’s humane response to an inhumane situation reported by the media and independent patient advocacy group(s). CCHR objects to any patient, including Mr. Russell, being administered electroshock against their wishes.

In 1976, CCHR helped get the first prohibition of electroshocking minors passed in California, and in 2014, in Western Australia, obtained legislation making it a criminal offense to administer ECT to a minor.

Letter to Regions Hospital from CCHR International:

(Download PDF here)

26 November 2024

Mary Albrecht
Lead Patient Relations Representative
Regions Hospital
640 Jackson St.
Saint Paul, MN 55101
Via fax: 651-254-9558

Re: David Russell Forced Electroshock Treatment

Dear Mary,

I write to you as the Legal Officer with the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), headquartered in Los Angeles, with chapters throughout the U.S. In its 55-year year history, CCHR has achieved numerous reforms toward patient protections and informed consent, and the prohibition of electroshock treatment on minors.

CCHR is apprised from media reports of David Russell, a patient at Regions Hospital, who is opposed to undergoing electroshock treatment. A recent CBS News story reported that doctors at your facility are seeking a court order to administer more forced electroshock to Mr. Russell.

Given international psychiatric and human rights groups and agencies opposing forced psychiatric treatment, your hospital’s action is outrageous, and a violation of Mr. Russell’s informed consent rights.

Coercive treatment (against a patient’s will) has been condemned internationally and its risks are well acknowledged in the courts:

In 2020, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) issued a “Position Statement and Call to Action: Implementing Alternatives to Coercion: A Key Component of Improving Mental Health Care.” It stated its concern about “the extent to which coercive interventions violate” human rights and recognized practices that constitute coercion to include formal (involuntary) detention, treatment without consent, seclusion and restraint use.”[10]

In October 2023, the joint Guideline on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) condemned coercive practices defined to include, involuntary electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), as a violation of “the right to be protected from torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment….”[11] “If permitted, ECT must only be administered with the written or documented, free and informed consent of the person concerned,” the publication states.[12] [emphasis added]

The U.S. has ratified the UN Convention against Torture (CAT), adopting it in domestic law. A Harvard Law School Project on Disability report titled, “When Does Mental Health Coercion Constitute Torture?” notes that to constitute torture, there is an “intent to inflict severe harm.”[13] As reported by the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, the U.S. Senate’s understanding and obligation to the Convention: includes: (1)(a) That with reference to Article 1, the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from: (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality….[14]

While CAT often relates to immigration (i.e., a person cannot be returned to a country where they are likely to face torture), it also relates to “persons in the offender’s custody or physical control,” and by extension of this, Mr. Russell is in the custody of Regions Hospital.

Knowing the risks and harm associated with ECT, to administer it against a person’s consent in this day and age, and in direct opposition to their refusal to undergo the treatment, is arguably an intent to harm. “There are no long-term studies that show ECT is safe or effective. ECT can cause brain damage, permanent memory loss and neurocognitive injury,” according to a Los Angeles law firm that has successfully litigated cases related to ECT.[15]

Putting Mr. Russell’s Health and Mental Health at Risk

It is unclear how the courts adjudicating forced ECT are informed of the documented serious risks that frequently are not imparted to the patient or his or her family.

A recent study published in Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry 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 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. According to Dr. Read’s study, “the ethical principle of informed consent is being routinely breached by ECT psychiatrists.”[16]

Dr. Read further states: “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.

In 2023, Somatics, the manufacturer of an ECT device in the U.S., was the object of a lawsuit involving severe personal injury allegations it and proceeded to trial. The attorneys for 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 case is ongoing.[17]

According to the law firm Wisner Baum (who represented Thelen), “ECT medical devices are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. [It has clearance only, which is different.] There are no long-term studies that show ECT is safe or effective. ECT can cause brain damage, permanent memory loss and neurocognitive injury. Survivors have called ECT treatment ‘barbaric’ and ‘torture.’”[18]

Expert Dr. Bennet Omalu, a clinical pathologist and neuropathologist, and Professor at the Department of Medical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, and the first person to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in football players, states:

“[t]he amounts of electrical energy introduced to the human brain by ECT machines can be nothing but harmful and dangerous.” It can be “expected to cause cellular physiologic, biochemical, and anatomic injuries to the human brain…since such ECT-induced electrical injuries occur repeatedly over time, 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. Such brain degeneration can manifest with multi-domain neurological impairments including cognitive impairment, mood disorders and neuro-psychiatric impairment, behavioral impairment, motor disorders and other somatic symptoms and signs.”[19]

On June 20, 2024, the California Supreme Court rejected Somatics’ argument that only a physician’s decision to prescribe is relevant to legal (proximate) causation and that patient autonomy should be disregarded. The Supreme Court’s ruling confirms that patient autonomy remains sacrosanct and must be considered in pharmaceutical product liability failure to warn cases [extended to Somatics.] Somatics did not dispute in the lower court that its ECT device can cause brain damage and permanent memory loss; did not dispute it failed to warn doctors of the risk of brain damage and permanent memory loss; and did not dispute that plaintiff, Michelle Himes, sustained brain injury, nonetheless argued it should be immune from liability because the plaintiff’s doctor testified he would have prescribed treatment with ECT even if the manufacturer had warned him of the risk of brain damage. The court rejected this.[20]

Other court precedents in favor of the ECT survivor

In the UK, Elsie Tindle, 71, suffered a permanent epileptic seizure from electroshock treatment, causing irreparable brain damage, according to a jury at a coroner’s inquest in March 2016. The treatment was given without her consent and without the second opinion from an appointed doctor required by law. Elsie’s brain was completely starved of oxygen during the prolonged fit last year, a jury at Sunderland Coroner’s Court was told. UK’s Home Office pathologist Dr Nigel Cooper, who performed the post-mortem on Miss Tindle, concluded the formal cause of death as anoxic-ischemic brain damage, due to status epilepticus, due to electroconvulsive therapy.”[21]

In 2005, a jury in Columbia, SC, awarded Peggy S. Salters, 60, $635,177 in compensation finding that her loss of 30 years of memory and cognitive impairment was due to ECT. In 2000, Peggy S. Salters, 60, received an intensive course of ECT following the death of several close family members, including her husband. This was administered ECT 16 times by Dr. Robert Schnackenberg. During the course of the treatment, she began having memory difficulties and was unable to function at home, which she reported to Dr. Lewkowiez. Dr. Lewkowiez did not convey this to the doctor administering the ECT. Dr. Schnackenberg’s medical records show Dr. Lewkowiez encouraged Salters to continue with the treatments. Later, Dr. Lewkowiez observed Salters continued “to be confused and disoriented.” At this point, Salters decided to stop the ECT because she was “completely unable to function.” Dr. Lewkowiez recommended Salters see psychologist, Dr. Mary Elizabeth Shea, for memory loss secondary to ECT. In Dr. Shea’s opinion, Salters suffered memory loss as a result of the ECT. Ms. Salters held a Master of Science in nursing and had a long career as a psychiatric nurse, but lost her knowledge of nursing skills and was unable to return to work after ECT. She lost all memories of the past, including memories of her husband of three decades and the births of her three children.[22]

A pathologist in an inquest in the UK said that the seizure from ECT caused irreparable brain damage to the recipient.[23] In another inquest, a coroner determined that involuntary ECT did not prevent but led to a patient’s suicide.[24]

Courts Need to Be Informed

Courts should be aware of the potential serious risks that patients like Mr. Russell could experience and why it should never be a court’s decision to mandate such a risk. Indeed, forced ECT should be outlawed.

A June 10, 2021 report issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) calls for the end of coercive psychiatric practices, which it says “are pervasive and are increasingly used in services in countries around the world, despite the lack of evidence that they offer any benefits, and the significant evidence that they lead to physical and psychological harm and even death.”[25]

Failure to Warn

Reviewing the websites of Mayo Clinic, where Mr. Russell was subjected to 17 rounds of ECT, and Regions Hospital where doctors are petitioning the courts to do more, there is a lack of information upon which even a consenting individual should decide, let alone someone being forced to undergo it against their express wishes.

Mayo Clinic grossly underplays the risks of ECT:

“ECT seems to change brain chemistry, and these changes can quickly improve symptoms of certain mental health conditions… [clearly, not in Mr. Russell’s case]…but this procedure may not work for everyone.” (Emphasis added, and there’s no scientific evidence/clinical trials to substantiate these claims.)

It mentions the following side effects only: confusion, memory loss…. For most people, these memory problems usually get better within a couple of months after treatment; nausea, headaches, jaw pain or muscle aches. The only reference to anything stronger than these is “During ECT, your heart rate and blood pressure increase for a limited time. If you have serious heart problems, ECT may be riskier.”[26]

Regions Hospital references studies of ECT that do not appear to address long-term memory loss, brain and cognitive damage. Indeed, it references this: “Electroconvulsive therapy can induce mania. A recent change in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition classifies electroconvulsive therapy-induced manic episodes as a bipolar type I diagnosis.”[27] As such, an iatrogenic adverse effect is re-defined as a mental disorder.

For the above reasons, CCHR objects to any patient, including Mr. Russell, being administered electroshock. This is not a request to CCHR from Mr. Russell, but CCHR’s humane response to an inhumane situation reported by the media and by other, independent patient advocacy group(s). The administration of ECT under these circumstances is tantamount to misleading the court to be a party to torture—an intention to harm.

CCHR will continue to monitor this situation.

Sincerely,

Steve Wagner
Legal Officer

References:

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/man-undergoing-electroshock-treatment-fights-to-end-medical-procedures/ar-AA1uB4km

[2] https://mindfreedom.org/front-page/david-russell/

[3] https://mindfreedom.org/front-page/david-russell/

[4] https://mindfreedom.org/front-page/david-russell/, “Update: Sept.12, 2024”

[5] https://mindfreedom.org/front-page/david-russell/, “Update: Sept.12, 2024”

[6] https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g17/032/23/pdf/g1703223.pdf

[7] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2023/august/electroshock-therapy-ect-trial-jury-finds-somati/, https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2024/june/wisner-baum-prevails-in-landmark-win-for-patient/, https://ectjustice.com/dk-law-group-announces-ect-settlement/, and https://ahrp.org/landmark-decision-jury-awards-635177-damages-for-memory-loss-from-electroshock/.

[8] https://mindfreedom.org/front-page/david-russell/, “Update: November 4-7, 2024”

[9] https://mindfreedom.org/front-page/david-russell/, entry for 11/23/24, at top of webpage

[10] https://www.wpanet.org/alternatives-to-coercion; https://www.wpanet.org/_files/ugd/e172f3_635a89af889c471683c29fcd981db0aa.pdf

[11] World Health Organization, OHCHR, “Guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation,” 9 Oct. 2023, pp. 13, 15

[12] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[13] Matthew S. Smith & Michael Ashley Stein, “WHEN DOES MENTAL HEALTH COERCION CONSTITUTE TORTURE?: IMPLICATIONS OF UNPUBLISHED U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGE DECISIONS DENYING NON-REFOULEMENT PROTECTION,” Fordham Intern. Law Journ., Vol 45:5, 2022, pp. 797 & 798; https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ilj/vol45/iss5/2/

[14] http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/usdocs/tortres.html

[15] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[16] 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, 2024, https://repository.uel.ac.uk/item/8xyx0

[17] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2023/august/electroshock-therapy-ect-trial-jury-finds-somati/

[18] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[19] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[20] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2024/june/wisner-baum-prevails-in-landmark-win-for-patient/

[21] “Woman died after NHS electric shock therapy was given without consent or second opinion,” Daily Mirror, 11 Mar. 2016, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-died-after-nhs-electric-7540901

[22] http://endofshock.com/litigation.htm

[23] “Woman died after NHS electric shock therapy was given without consent or second opinion,” Daily Mirror, 11 Mar. 2016, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-died-after-nhs-electric-7540901

[24] https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/grandfather-forced-to-undergo-ect-before-preventable-death-20180418-p4zacy.html

[25] Guidance on Community Mental Health Services: Promoting Person-Centered and Rights-Based Approaches,” World Health Organization, 10 June 2021, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240025707 (to download report)

[26] https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/electroconvulsive-therapy/about/pac-20393894
https://www.healthpartners.com/knowledgeexchange/display/document-rn7206