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Stop Shocking Disabled Group Home Residents [PSMag.com]

 

Federal officials have moved to ban the controversial electric shock device a Boston-area group home and school has used for decades on its disabled clients.

In a 124-page document proposing the ban, the Food and Drug Administration accused The Judge Rotenberg Center of underreporting adverse effects from the device, using flawed studies to defend its approach, and misleading families about alternative treatments.

“FDA has determined that these devices present an unreasonable and substantial risk of illness or injury that cannot be corrected or eliminated by labeling,” the agency wrote.

The Rotenberg Center is the only place in the country to still employ such a device, which delivers a painful shock to residents’ skin when they engage in undesirable or dangerous behaviors. Currently, 56 of the center’s 251 residents can receive the shocks.

The method has been widely condemned as inhumane. State officials in New York and Massachusetts for years have tried to force the center to abandon using shocks as multiple complaints about them surfaced. In 2014, ProPublica also revealed that New York officials found the center had tied down children with leg and waist straps to punish them.



[For more of this story, written by Heather Vogell, go to https://psmag.com/stop-shockin...cdafdf621#.x2xgpynpl]

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