Doctors Tout Shock Therapy for Depression

Over the last couple of years, I have noticed a trickle of doctors openly touting ECT for treating depression, especially depression coupled with psychosis. Here's another example, published in the respected The Lancet medical journal. (Here's another account.) Doctors call ECT the most effective treatment for depression, especially used in conjunction with anti-depressants. In addition, the article calls unwarranted and not backed by research moves by the FDA and British health authorities to place warning labels on anti-depressants about increased risk of suicidality connected with the drugs. I don't even know where to start with this arrogant horseshit, but I'll say this: any doctor who uses ECT should be required to undergo treatment with it themselves, so they can understand why patients do or don't like it. What's more, ECT should only be used where a patient is in a positon to give consent. It should never be forced on patients. As for the claims about anti-depressants, the doctors who wrote this paper are wrong. There is good data out there establishing the suicidality link. Some of it comes from the pharma companies themselves. And there are many patients who will say the same thing. But, of course, the media only pays attention to allegedly important researchers.