FDA bans shock devices used on mentally disabled patients

WASHINGTON » Federal officials on Wednesday banned electrical shock devices used to discourage aggressive, self-harming behavior in patients with mental disabilities.

The announcement from the Food and Drug Administration follows years of pressure from disability rights groups and mental health experts who have called the treatment outdated, ineffective and unethical. The agency first announced its intent to ban the devices in 2016.

For years, the shock devices have been used by only one place in the U.S., the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center of Canton, Massachusetts, a residential school for people with autism and other psychiatric, developmental or mental disabilities. The FDA said Wednesday it estimates 45 to 50 people at the school are currently being treated with the device.

School administrators have called the shocks a last resort to prevent dangerous behaviors, such as head-banging, throwing furniture or attacking teachers or classmates. The center has continued to use the shock devices under a decades-old legal settlement with the state of Massachusetts, but needs court approval before beginning use on each resident.

School officials said in a statement they plan to challenge the government ban in court. A parents’ group also defended the practice and said it would fight the ban.

Electric shocks and other painful or unpleasant treatments known as “aversive conditioning” were more widely accepted decades ago. But mainstream psychiatry now relies on behavioral modification, prescription drugs and other therapies that have proven more effective.

The Rotenberg school has used shock devices carried in students’ backpacks, which were attached to their arms and legs via electrodes. School staffers could trigger a two-second shock to a patient’s skin by using a remote controller.

Some patients from the Rotenberg center have compared the shocks to a bee sting or worse. The school has faced several lawsuits brought by families who said their children were traumatized by the shocks.