FDA considers ban on electric shock devices used to curb self-harm

CANTON, Mass. — Some cut themselves. Others slam their heads against walls or desks – so hard that one girl detached both retinas and a young man triggered a stroke. Another pulled out all his teeth.
Self-injury is one of the most difficult behaviors associated with autism and other developmental or intellectual disabilities, and a private facility outside Boston that takes on some of the hardest-to-treat cases is embroiled in a major debate: Should it use electrical skin shocks to try to keep patients from harming themselves or others?
The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to ban devices used by the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, Massachusetts, the only place in the country known to use skin shocks as aversive conditioning for aggressive patients.
It’s a rare move by the FDA, following years of complaints from disability rights’ groups and even a U.N. report that the shocks are tantamount to torture.
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg says the shock therapy has raised a lot of questions.
“We really wanted to take a much more focused and rigorous look at it,” Hamburg said in an interview with The Associated Press. “There’s a lot of concern about the downside of this approach and the harm and the risk to the patients receiving it.”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/fda-looking-banning-electric-shock-device-used-curb-self-injury-among-patients-mass-facility/

FDA considers ban on electric shock devices used to curb self-harm

FDA considers ban on electric shock devices used to curb self-harm

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