By systematically targeting electroconvulsive therapy as part of its war on psychiatry, experts say Scientology could decimate a treatment that is “saving so many lives.”

The Atlantic’s 2001 article explained that ECT [Electroconvulsive therapy] had emerged from a terrifying past to become a safe and effective treatment for some of the worst effects of serious mental illnesses. But Scientology, through its campaigns and by pushing legislation, was promoting outdated myths about the procedure for a public that knew little about it.

Miscavige’s November 3 speech illustrated that Scientology is still pushing this agenda more than 20 years later—but with one big difference.

While Scientology has continued to campaign against ECT on various fronts, it has pursued a little known but very effective strategy against ECT’s most vulnerable spot: Namely, the two small companies that manufacture the devices that physicians use during the procedure.

For decades, Scientology has quietly waged a litigation war against those two companies, SigmaStim and Somatics, and it has both nearly on the ropes.

Scientology knows that if the two companies go out of business, federal regulations mandate that doctors will no longer be able to use their devices, and ECT will become unavailable in this country and around the world.

Those medical providers say that ECT is a safe procedure that is saving lives every day, and they are extremely concerned that it is nearly on the brink of disappearing—and only because of the relentless attacks of Scientology on the device manufacturers, a war that has flown completely under the radar until now.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I mean. Comparing modern ECTs to the shit from the 60s is like saying a doctor testing knee reflexes with the little hammer is the same as taking a sledgehammer to a kneecap…

  • MagicShel@programming.dev
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    3 months ago

    Not sure what to think about this. I hate Scientology, but I’m pretty iffy on ECT. My grandma had those treatments for years and it seemed to treat her anxiety by destroying her memory. I looked it up and treating anxiety with it is “controversial.”

    That doesn’t make me an expert in it and maybe there are folks it does wonderful things for, but at least in her case they probably should’ve just loaded her up with Xanax. Not that that is a wonderful option either, but that was really all she wanted and I think she put up with the ECT to try to convince them she needed it.

    So Scientology can get bent but I’ll allow for the possibility that maybe the stopped clock could be right here. Or maybe you folks have all seen it work much better than I have.

    • rtxn@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The problem is that this would remove ECT even as a desperate final option for treatment.

    • GetOffMyLan@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      Tbh honest mate the most likely thing is that’s a coincidence.

      It’s used all the time for people who can’t take drugs i.e. pregnant people. And has been shown to be very safe.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        100%. I am self-aware here. I’m not a professional, I just was in frequent contact with her during that part of her life. She was in one of those independent living places after my grandfather died, but still had her wits. This wasn’t end of life care. We could carry on long conversations about all kinds of things, past and present. If you’re implying it was dementia or Alzheimer’s, she never was diagnosed with either and lived another 15 years or so.

        I know, anecdotes aren’t data. I trust the medical profession as a whole. But there have been a lot of reproducibility issues with studies that have come out, particularly in the area of mental health. And between that and my experience I’m okay with taking another look at the data. But if researchers and clinicians are satisfied, I won’t gainsay that.

    • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Unless you have a medical license or a PhD what you typed holds absolutely zero weight. It’s the equivalent of saying all surgery is bad because a surgeon left a sponge inside my grandma

      • underwire212@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        It’s anecdotal. There are mountains of data and studies now. Still amazes me that people still argue “Oh, well X is bad because I know 1 person who had a bad experience”

        • MagicShel@programming.dev
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          3 months ago

          I’m definitely not saying it’s bad. There are tons of possible reasons to explain my experience besides ECT bad.

          • underwire212@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            “I’m pretty iffy on ECT”

            “Doctors should’ve loaded her up with pills instead of ECT in her case”

            Sounds like you don’t see the merits in ECT, which is perfectly fine. I just disagree with your methods of reasoning used to support this conclusion.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        I think I was petty clear it’s an anecdote. There’s not very much to discuss here other than us nodding our heads in agreement that Scientology is bad. This is a discussion board. I discussed.

    • protist@mander.xyz
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      3 months ago

      ECT is not a treatment for anxiety, unfortunately. I’ve seen it work wonders for severe depression, mania, and catatonia, but never for anxiety.

      Sometimes I’ve seen ECT being used as a “last resort” treatment for people with issues that can only be treated with psychotherapy, like PTSD or borderline personality disorder, but who have been unwilling or unable to do the work over the course of years and the doctors are lost on where to go next. In these cases ECT is almost universally a failure and the side effects are not worth it.

      For someone in a manic episode or who’s experiencing catatonia, some memory loss is a small trade to have your life back.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        It is, or at least was, a controversial treatment for anxiety. And my grandma was drug seeking. She just wanted to be bombed out of her mind on Xanax, so I can even see looking for other treatment options out of desperation because nothing worked the way she wanted and they wouldn’t give her enough Xanax.

        I get it. It was just hard to watch her after her treatments. At first the memories came back, but eventually they didn’t.

        But that’s just my experience. I’m not going to argue with medical science because even if future science shows mistakes were made, it’s not like I have the knowledge or experience to do better. But science grows by being challenged and proving itself or being proven wrong. I’m okay with it being challenged by actual professionals - not by Scientologists.

        • protist@mander.xyz
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          3 months ago

          Lots of medical treatments are improperly applied due to a physician’s poor clinical judgment, and it sounds like that’s what happened in this case. Sorry this happened to your grandma

  • ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    i may be OOTL on this, but hasn’t ECT always had a reputation of not achieving what it set out to do with the added bonus of irreversible damage to the patient?

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
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    3 months ago

    Wow, that is really a terrible shame. ECT saved my grandfather’s life. We were all nervous about it because of the bad marketing and myths out there (which in retrospect are likely perpetrated by scientology).

    It was an overnight change after years of failed treatments. We had our Pop-Pop back.

  • macniel@feddit.org
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    3 months ago

    How come only those two companies build those medical devices?

    How come Scientology can fuck with them like that?

    Why do we still have religion and cults in positions of power?

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      How come only those two companies build those medical devices?

      Not much demand, I’d imagine.

      How come Scientology can fuck with them like that?

      They have a lot of money, and that’s all it takes.

      Why do we still have religion and cults in positions of power?

      Because the people who put them in power fall for their bullshit, same as it ever was.

    • dactylotheca@suppo.fi
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      3 months ago

      I bet David had her killed years ago. They own the cops so nothing ever comes of the investigations

    • midnight_puker@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Aaron Levin Smith made a video on Shelleys whereabouts somewhat recently. IIRC she’s in a compound in California somewhere and she’s fine, by all outward appearances. I’m pretty sure she’s drinking the kool ade like the rest of them.

      • dactylotheca@suppo.fi
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        3 months ago

        Huh, interesting. Probably not “fine” though since if she’s at Gold / Int Base she’s probably being held against her will, considering that the whole base is sorta built around being like a prison compound and they even have private security “pursuit teams” to hunt down escapees

        • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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          3 months ago

          From the linked wiki:

          According to some former members of Scientology, conditions within Gold Base are harsh, with staff members receiving sporadic paychecks of $50 at most, working seven days a week, and being subjected to punishments for failing to meet work quotas.[2] Media reports have stated that around 100 people a year try to escape from the base but most are soon retrieved by “pursuit teams”. Despite many accounts of mistreatment from ex-members, law enforcement investigations and lawsuits against Scientology have been thwarted by the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom and the church’s ability to rely on “ministerial exemptions” in employment law. Scientology denies any mistreatment and calls the base “the ideal setting for professional and spiritual growth”.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Appearances can be deceiving. They wouldn’t be hiding her in a compound for years and not responding to inquiries if everything was good between her and the CoS.

        • midnight_puker@sh.itjust.works
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          From what I understand, she doesn’t seem to be held against her will. If Aaron Levin Smith is to be believed (being that he is a former Sea Org member, I’d say his credibility is good), she’s been seen out and about running errands and the like, but always with a security detail. There’s a decent chance that I’m misremembering something, though, so take this with a pinch of salt.

          • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            Yeah people are desperate to believe horror stories especially involving a woman but the reality is very likely she’s just a member of the cult living a relaxed and affluent life on the money they swindle.

  • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    Modern ECT is a godsend for the people it works for because a lot of times it’s only tried when nothing else is quite working. Its a far cry from what it used to look like, and rallying against it’s modern form is little different from rallying against cholesterol pills.

  • unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
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    3 months ago

    Shelly Miscavige? Ummm. Must have uh… uhh uhh… misplaced uh. What?

    When Balzac and Borpis join up with Scientology, they hold the line… of fake cocaine the church leaders gave them to expose leakers… But shit, still don’t know what happened to Shelly

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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    3 months ago

    You know, if the US removed the tax-exempt status from churches, the CoS would have way fewer resources to pull shit like this.

    • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Article 3. [Freedom in religion; right and duty of religious worship]

      That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God; and that no person ought to, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of conscience…

      —Vermont Constitution, 1793

      Really wish we could have got that “or erect or support” clause in the US Constitution. Would have made for some interesting court arguments about tax exempt status.

  • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    This is low-hanging fruit for scientology because they actually paint it as scary.

    Scientology’s “war on psychiatry” is an accurate description because it’s not that they do not believe in it - they believe its effects are evil. As in, yes, you should have to suffer with depression, and schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders. And then you treat it by joining their church where they basically institutionalize you the same way it was done prior to modern psychiatry.

  • anon6789@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I was curious how scientology could harass companies into bankruptcy since that seemed like harassment. I couldn’t turn up anything other than this article by searching for the companies names’ and lawsuit or scientology.

    It looks like there is a lobbying organization, Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), funded by the church of scientology. They look to be funding lawsuits brought by individuals against the ECT device makers. The lawsuits against electronic therapy look to go back to the late 1960s.

    This web page looks to be an anti-ECT propaganda page, but it covers their “victory” of bankrupting another ECT manufacturer and it covers their methodology for targeting them and for trying to get the practice banned. Although it is all likely BS, it’s very clear on what their intentions are, so it’s very informative reading even if it is propaganda.

    I don’t know enough about ECT to make any kind of informed decision on it, though I do generally trust moderm medicine as a whole. I was more interested in the legal process as it relates to the shared article, so take this as some threads to follow if you want to dive deeper than this article, not as me making any personal stance on ECT, since I know next to nothing about it.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The Church of Scientology has a museum in Hollywood, CA called Psychiatry: An Industry of Death. They don’t admit it’s affiliated with the church- more on that later- it claims it’s run by the “Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights,” which is one of their lobbying groups.

    Right next to it is a restaurant called The Cat and Fiddle, which happened to be where an atheist social group I was a part of when I lived there met up once a month. So one day, we decide to go over. They make you give your name and address to go in, so we gave very obvious fake ones. We were followed by what were very clearly handlers pretending to be other museum-goers who just happened to be hanging out in the lobby when we came in and gave us the sort of pious smiles you often see from religious people when they’re intentionally trying to do something shitty to you.

    Once you are let in, they make you watch an incredibly boring movie which lasted about half an hour. It was so boring, I remember nothing about it except “psychiatry bad.” The link I give above shows pictures of the very silly exhibits. Now on the subject of ECT, they literally blame the Holocaust on ECT. Like Germany was giving people ECT and that turned them into Nazis and that’s how the Holocaust happened.

    And then you get to the end with a bunch of plaques with their “advisors” and the names are names like John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Isaac Hayes… all the celebrities who are openly Scientologists. They didn’t really hide their affiliation very well.

    It was very amusing at the time, and they didn’t charge us any money so we didn’t feel like we were contributing to church bullshit, but it does feel a lot less amusing now.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The whole field of psychology has such an inhumane and crackpot history that they’ve brought this upon themselves. I’m don’t defend Scientology, but they don’t stick ice-picks in peoples brains or use the courts to sterilize minorities. I’m not aware of a Scientologist being instrumental in the Satanic Panic or retrieving false memories, through hypnosis, that put innocent people in jail for child abuse.

    EST isn’t going away because Scientology attacked it, it’s because psychologists have cried wolf too many times that their barbaric methods have therapeutic value.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      The whole field of psychology has such an inhumane and crackpot history that they’ve brought this upon themselves.

      Are people practicing psychiatry today responsible for the mistakes of people in the past who had similar goals but entirely different methods? Do you think prescribing medical treatments for mental disorders should automatically mean taking the blame for past mistakes?

        • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          That’s their money making model, target people who need mental Healthcare, tell them it’s not a mental health problem, it’s a spiritual problem, and they need to pay and participate in their religion and avoid mental Healthcare.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      3 months ago

      It was Hubbard’s favorite target. In all honestly, the treatment was pretty horrible and used indiscriminately in the past. It’s now used in much more focused and responsible ways when nothing else works.