Sackeim, Harold

Sneed, Joel R., Bret R. Rutherford, David Rindskopf, David T. Lane, Harold A. Sackeim and Steven P. Roose, Design Makes a Difference A Meta-Analysis of Antidepressant Response Rates in Placebo-Controlled Versus Comparator Trials in Late-Life Depression , American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 16, no. 1 (2008) 65-73... 

Then something remarkable happened. In 2007, a team led by longtime, staunch electroshock advocate Harold Sackeim et al. published a follow-up study of patients given electroshock. The researchers found that the patients were devastated with widespread losses not only in memory, but also in cognitive functioning—the ability to think and learn. 

Did his own research at last induce Harold Sackeim to make public statements withdrawing his previous wholehearted support for ECT To the contrary, shortly after the publication of his paper I began to receive calls from the media asking me to respond to promotional claims by Dr. Sackeim in support of a supposedly new and improved form of ECT that sounded very much like the same old thing. One is left to wonder what drives so many mental health professionals in such an unrelenting, remorseless fashion to damage the brains of their patients. 

The political nature of the APA (1990b) task force report is reflected in the membership of the panel that wrote it. The chairperson, Richard Weiner, was APA s official representative in defense of ECT at the FDA hearings and has for some time been APA s chief spokesperson on the subject. Two of the other six members are psychiatrist Max Fink and psychologist Harold Sackeim, whom we have already met as among the... 

Given that even the APA and the FDA published fraudulent claims about the harmlessness of ECT, it is fair to conclude that patients are rarely if ever going to be given informed consent by doctors who advocate the treatment. Because ECT promoters like Max Fink, Richard Abrams, and Harold Sackeim are considered believable authorities by their colleagues, practicing psychiatrists feel safe in telling their patients that ECT is relatively harmless and very effective. 

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