Okay, that’s enough

Dr. Max Fink (pictured), who has a history of touting ECT because he benefits financially and otherwise for doing so (patients’ lives be damned) is back again — with a vengeance. Not only has he published an entirely disingenuous and damaging article in Psychosomatics suggesting that ECT’s side effects are all in the patients’ minds, he is now promoting a book that he seems to have ghostwritten. I won’t go into all the reasons that I believe he is one of the most unethical clinicians in the history of medicine, but I am completely disgusted by these latest gambits on his part.

ECT critic and author Linda Andre first tipped me off to the article, about which she sent a letter to the editor:

Re: “Complaints of Loss of Personal Memories after Electroconvulsive Therapy: Evidence of a Somatoform Disorder?” by Max Fink

Dear Editor:

Not only is the argument made by Dr. Fink not supported by logic or science, but the plain facts in his article are false. As the Editor, you had the responsibility to check his facts, even if he felt no such responsibility. Dr. Fink knew he could have verified his statements about Marilyn Rice with me, since he knows of my relationship with Mrs. Rice and knows how to contact me. He did not.

I knew Mrs. Rice well from 1985 to her death in 1992 and inherited her voluminous archives when she died. Here are the corrections to the false statements you printed:

It is not true that Mrs. Rice made “persistent complaints of dental pain” prior to her orthodontic treatment. In her late 40s, some of her teeth began to come loose; only after attempts to simultaneously straighten her teeth and resolve these seemingly minor gum problems ended in a disastrous reshaping of her entire mouth by an inexpert orthodontist did she experience pain, which never resolved for the rest of her life. Understandably, this experience resulted in depression. However, there was no “9 week stay in a psychiatric hospital”. Mrs. Rice was admitted to a hospital just a short time before being talked into ECT, and spent a total of three weeks there, while she received eight shocks.

Now, besides a ruined mouth and constant pain, she had to contend with a ruined memory, not a “preoccupation with memory”.

Mrs. Rice did indeed retire on medical disability, but it was not for somatoform disorder; she was found by expert medical examiners for the federal government to be totally disabled due to ECT-induced amnesia. Fink conveniently leaves this fact out.

The so-called quote which Fink repeats, in which she says her experience with shock wasn’t a total disaster, was made up by the reporter from the New Yorker. Mrs. Rice made this clear publicly in numerous ways over the ensuing years, including in a published book.

It is false that “neuropsychological tests were unable to document decrements in memory or recall functions”; in fact such testing did show such decrements. This evidence was the basis of her successful disability claim, and was presented in court by her expert witnesses.

The organization Rice founded and which I now direct, the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry, is not an “anti-ECT advocacy group.” The one and only purpose of CTIP is to advocate for truthful informed consent to ECT.

Finally, and most shamefully, Fink claims Rice was “hospitalized for multiple suicide attempts” before ECT. If Rice were alive, she’d sue for libel and win easily on the basis of this fiction. She was hospitalized once only in her life, because of the stress of ongoing botched dental treatment. She never attempted suicide, much less was she ever hospitalized for that reason.

Linda also sent out an email about Fink’s new pro-shock book:

I just found out from the publisher that Max Fink, though the foundation he founded, funds, and heads, the Scion Natural Science Association, gave a grant to fund the book SHOCK TREATMENT, to be out in September from Rutgers University Press.

The named authors are David Healy and Edward Shorter. Fink was one of the original authors (according to Fink himself) but in the end his name was taken off and just the two others remain.

The book is a long pro-shock argument, naturally.

Healy and Shorter didn’t tell the publisher about the funding; though the book has been signed to Rutgers for a long time, they just found out today, I believe through an internet search.

Rutgers University Press should be ashamed of themselves if this is the case.

Most people who challenge the prevelant use of ECT — people like me — are not saying it should be banned. We are saying that patients should be informed of their options as well as the possible side effects that may result from the treatment. Most medical procedures are treated with such candor. I see no reason to obscure the facts from people faced with the question of whether to pursue ECT.

I have had enough of doctors like Fink trying to discredit ECT patients and twisting the facts to suit their purposes. We need to stand up to this. We need to hold people accountable. If I ever form a rock band, I’m going to name it Informed Consent.

liz | 10:37 AM | Uncategorized