Ireland has enacted a ban on electroshock treatment, also known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), for minors under its new Mental Health Act, a significant step forward in protecting young people from a procedure that delivers up to 460 volts of electricity through the brain, according to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) International. The law, passed in May, safeguards those younger than 18 from ECT, which can cause severe memory loss and cognitive and brain damage.
CCHR, a mental health industry watchdog, helped obtain the first law banning ECT on minors under 12 in California in 1976, and later in Texas on minors under 16 in 1993. In Western Australia, CCHR supported a ban on ECT for those aged 14 and younger in 2014, with criminal penalties for violators. Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, praised Irish officials for recognizing the need to prohibit ECT's use on minors, increasing the age to 17. "However, like thousands who called for ECT to be banned in the U.S. under the FDA's Final Rule in 2018, the ban should be extended to all ages. CCHR is committed to achieving this," Eastgate said.
The Human Rights Institute in Ireland reported that the adoption of the Mental Health Act "can be regarded as one of the country's significant developments in the advancement of human rights and in the reconsideration of the relationship between health, human dignity, and the public responsibilities of the state." The Irish Mental Health Commission noted that "the most significant right potentially affected by this legislation is the right to liberty and personal security."
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared ECT devices for those 13 and older for three limited conditions, but they are broadly administered off-label, a practice CCHR wants to stop. The newly formed Stop ECT Coalition, comprising health and human rights organizations representing hundreds of thousands of individuals, is urging a review of how ECT devices remain on the market. ECT devices were "grandfathered" into FDA regulation in 1976 as a Class III high-risk device, bypassing modern standards requiring Premarket Approval (PMA), including clinical trials proving safety and efficacy. In 2018, the FDA reduced the risk classification to moderate risk (Class II) without safety and efficacy trials. The Coalition emphasizes that this incorrect classification allowed ECT devices to be used on children as young as five, pregnant women, seniors, veterans, and other vulnerable persons. Involuntary application, still occurring in some U.S. facilities, has been condemned by the United Nations and World Health Organization as a human-rights abuse.
Dr. John Read, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, who has extensively reviewed ECT studies, noted that several leading proponents once argued that ECT works by reducing intelligence or erasing traumatic memories, a theory described as "brain-damaging therapeutics." He and colleagues published a review of over a hundred studies demonstrating that the effects on the brain from ECT are very similar to closed-brain injury. Robert Rubinstein, a former psychiatry professor at the University of California in San Francisco, compared ECT to "kicking a Swiss watch." Psychiatrist Dr. Niall McLaren stated unequivocally: "No psychiatrist needs to use ECT."
A mental health strategy plan drafted by the World Health Organization's Department of Mental Health and Substance Use warned of ECT's health risks, including brain damage, cardiovascular complications, memory impairment, and even death, stating that ECT should be banned for children and that non-consenting use may constitute torture.
CCHR, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz, has helped obtain hundreds of laws worldwide that increase informed consent rights and prohibit deep sleep treatment, a combination of ECT and a psychotropic drug-induced coma. For more information, visit the Stop ECT Coalition at stopect.com/coalition or CCHR at cchrint.org.
