Rice is writing to ask Weiner if his task force, The Task Force on the Development of a Safety Standard and Performance Standard for Electroconvulsive Therapy Devices, can do what it can to help a severely injured victim of this procedure. Rice provides the story of a woman who went to be treated with ECT, because she read that they now can do with no memory loss; however, the shocks caused her to become incredibly weak. After three weeks of dealing with the side effects, she went back to the hospital where she was treated with three more shocks, which cause her to lose a lot of her memory. She can now no longer read, write, help around the house, or do anything that required mental concentration. She has now admitted herself to a Mississippi State Hospital so she would no longer be a burden on her family. Rice believes that the American Psychiatric Association has a responsibility to the situation, because of the information they provided saying they have found a way to do ECT with no memory loss, and should help determine the cause of problems in this woman's brain.
Requests to publish, redistribute, or replicate this material should be addressed to Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
Contact host institution for more information.