American Children Tortured

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There's a lovely website called biblegateway.com that anyone curious can look at. It would definitely have all of these (in a great many versions; I recommend the NIV), and it's searchable. Really, just go there if you're at all curious about the Bible or about God; it's in more languages than I've heard of, with every English version ever to exist (except the Revised Standard Version, which happens to be my favorite), and you have the option to look at Old Testament, New Testament, everything except Apocrypha (a.k.a. deuterocanonical books), everything including Apocrypha, Gospels, Epistles, just Apocrypha... and you can tell it whether or not to use red.

This is a fairly long post, with a lot of thinking in it. The kind of post I write from time to time that can tend to get people on both sides of an issue fired up if my words are taken out of context. If you're the type who would rather just scan a long post like this, please don't even read it. If you do scan it, you are highly likely to miss the real point, and draw conclusions from it that aren't an accurate reflection of what I really think. I started out thinking one thing, then another, then not so sure of either, so if you can't be bothered to take your time reading it in detail, please don't bother with it at all. I don't think I want to be bothered replying to any posts that pull my words out of context and ignore the entire point.

I'm not even going to bother addressing whether this "therapy" is a good or a bad idea. To be quite honest, I would just get too pissed off and end up saying something that's likely to get me kicked off the forums.

This whole section deals with the "amp/volt" issue. If you aren't interested in this, or if math confuses you, you might want to skip this part and scroll down to the next line of asterisks.

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About volts vs. amps:

There is some clear misunderstanding here of the relationship between volts and amps. First of all, amps are amps. Period. 1 amp is 1 amp, no matter WHAT the voltage is. It's the combination of available volts and the resistance to that voltage that determines amps. No matter what the voltage or resistance is, if the combination can result in 100 milliamps (or ten one thousandths of an amp), that can stop your heart. It doesn't matter what the voltage is, it's the combination of voltage and resistance that matters. If your body has enough resistance, it can withstand many thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of volts applied to it. Volts don't flow anywhere. Amps do. Resistance restricts the flow of Amps, so the higher the resistance, the lower the amps. It's the amps that kill.

Let's clear this up once and for all. This is a topic I understand intimately. Yes, amps kill, not volts. Ever been to a science museum with a Vander Graff generator? It's a static electricity generator that used a large band of material that spins against brushes generating a huge static voltage that collects on a metal ball at the top of the generator. All it does is build up a charge on the surface of the ball. If you complete a connection between the ball and the ground, the charge dissipates through the connection to the ground. If you are standing on the ground, and touch the ball, the charge instantly flows through your body to the ground with a loud snap. Most of them used for demonstration build up around 10,000 volts, but the amperage delivered is so low it's not dangerous for most people. Volts can be thought of as "pressure" or the ability to deliver amperage, like the pressure in a hose with the nozzle turned off. The more you open the main valve feeding water to the hose, the higher the pressure is in the hose, as long as the nozzle is closed. You don't get flow until the nozzle is opened. The more you open the nozzle, the higher the amount of water that flows through it. That amount of water flow (not the pressure or speed with which the water comes out, but the actual AMOUNT of water flowing) is roughly analogous to amperage.

The ball on a Vander Graff generator collects electrons that want to do nothing but get to the ground, or anywhere else where there are less electrons than on the ball. How "badly" they want to get from there to wherever is measured in volts. How ABLE they are to get there depends on what they have to flow through to get there. When we touch the ball, it creates a connection between the ball to the ground, allowing the electrons to use us as a "conductor" to get to the ground. BUT, our bodies don't allow the electrons to flow completely uninhibited. Our bodies posses materials that resist the flow of electrons.

So your body, when connected to the generators ball, is acting like a nozzle at the end of a hose, creating resistance, and restricting the flow of electrons to some degree. We measure that degree in resistance units called "Ohms."

Volts are only ONE factor that determines how much amperage will flow. How many OHMS are in the circuit also determines that.

If you have an electrical source of 1 volt, and a circuit (your body between the generator ball to the ground), that has resistance of I OHM, 1 amp can flow through that circuit.

The formula for that is known as I = E/R, where I is Amps, E is volts, and R is resistance measured in Ohms.

100 milliamps through your heart can kill, and almost always will. Whether or not a lower level will kill you is dependent how how many volts are applied to your body, and how much resistance your body offers to the voltage. In some cases, 50 milliamps can kill you. A milliamp is one one thousandth of an amp. So one tenth of an amp WILL kill you, if it passes through your heart. Less than a tenth CAN kill you.


However, all the above depends on whether the amperage passes directly through the heart. These techniques are designed not to do that. The connections made are passing from one point on the skin, through the skin only, to another point on the skin. They're not designed to pass through the heart.

They say they are using 60 volts applied. To keep the amperage as low what most say will kill you, which is actually quite a bit lower than 100 milliamps (65 milliamps), you have to know what the resistance of the skin is.

If I=E/R, then R=E/I, which means in order to deliver .0065 amps, using 60 volts, the resistance of the skin, HAS to be 9,231 Ohms (rounded up). Resistance of human skin varies. Some say it's anywhere from 1000 ohms to 10,000 ohms (not much higher than the 9,231 Ohms it takes to get the .0065 amps (65 milliamps) that can often kill if it passes through the heart.

"But they aren't passing it through the heart," you may say. Well, are you? How do you know? The fact is, resistance INSIDE the body is SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER than skin resistance. And that's extremely important because voltage creates a situation where there is a build up of electrons that want's NOTHING but to get to a place where there is no build up. Electrical charges want to balance themselves, and they will always take the "path of least resistance" to do so. The body is not a wire, with near zero resistance in the metal in the center, and near infinite resistance in the rubber insulator around the wire. Because it's just easiest for electrons to flow through the wire, and not come flying outside of it, that's what they do.

When you start applying voltages to the human body, the rules all change. The human body is not a neat package of wires. It's a MESS of living tissue, some of which has certain resistant properties, and some of which has others. There is NO way to know with any certainty where electrons will flow when voltage is applied to the body.

Years ago, I tore apart a stereo to experiment with it. Not thinking, I leaned over the bare chassis of it while it was on, and accidentally put my hand on two live contacts inside it. The voltage between the contacts was 120 (standard house current in our area at the time). The contacts were no more than a half inch apart. You would think the current would just jump across that half inch of skin on my hand, but that's NOT what it did. It went right up my arm, into my chest. And the resulting muscle spasms sent me flying back against the wall behind me. It felt as though my chest had been hit by a truck.

Now, what you should know is that the 120 volt supply I touched had a far higher capacity to deliver a lot of amperage than the things they use at that school. There is more to it than just voltage and resistance, but I think I've gotten complicated enough. Every electrical device has a limit to how many amps it can deliver, no matter what the voltage and resistance are. The garments (devices. or whatever they are) that the school uses probably have a very low limit to what they are able to deliver in terms of current (amps).

I can't draw any conclusion as to the safety, wisdom, or humaneness of this therapy. There just isn't enough available information about exactly how what the center does works in a technical sense. At least, I haven't found it yet.


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But I read somewhere in this thread that what they do deliver is "no worse than a bee sting." Well, what does a bee sting feel like to you? Does it feel like that to everyone else? Have you considered that Autistics often have heightened sensitivities? What if a bee sting that doesn't bother you feels like, say, being hit hard with a two by four? Pain is extremely subjective and feels differently to each individual. How do you know that what is felt by someone else doesn't feel like torture? You can't know! And neither can the doctors administering this "therapy."

If the Autistic kids being sent to this "school" really are only severe Autistics, how many of them can't even communicate what they are feeling?

And what about the unpredictable behavior of electricity in the human body? How can anyone guarantee that stray current never passes through vital organs? Did you know that the interior of the body actually has LOWER resistance than skin? Think about that. Who's to say that electrons that want nothing but to follow the path of least resistance won't pass somewhere other than through the skin alone? What proof exists that this never happens?

And here's the thing that really gives me pause:

If this therapy is nothing to fear, and is such a great thing, why is there no video of it actually being used? They administer these shocks from a video control room. I don't believe there are no videos of it in action. I am strongly suspect of any program like that that won't show us what it's all about when they HAVE evidence to show.

Why not?

I think we all know why. They know damned well that if they did release anything like that, they'd be shut down in a heartbeat.

But why is that? Is it because what they do is just plain wrong, and anyone should be able to see that? Or is it because a lot of us would probably react emotionally only to what we see, and not take into account what we DON'T know?

I'm not going to answer that question. I will only say that maybe we shouldn't judge what we don't know. How many of us have actually been there? How many of us actually know anyone who has been or is there? How many of the people posting their opinions about the center have been there or know anyone who has? Is passing judgment based on second hand knowledge alone really fair?

Sometimes, I admit, it can be. But maybe we ought to hear from some with actual experience there. These were all posted on YouTube by the center, however, they are all from public hearings, not produced by the center the last is the most interesting to me. There are plenty more on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brQBJpgC ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySA4bBjh ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UppFX4gc ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hcw8cPkY ... re=related

Yeah, there are a ton of videos and blogs condemning the center, but I haven't yet found one from anyone that's actually been there, or knows anyone who has.

I'll tell you, I started this post thinking I was totally against it. But then I saw the "other side" of the story. Now all I can say is, I've never been there. I've never seen what really goes on there. I don't know anyone who has, or can give me first hand reports of it.

Those facts, along with not being able to find anything negative from anyone with first hand experience with the center, are enough for me to say I don't know enough to come to any conclusion at all. I can say I know what it's like to feel as if you've "tried everything," and nothing is working. In our case, we did eventually find a better way, different from anything we had ever tried before, that doesn't involve behavioral modification, or punishment involving pain. It's working for us, but our kids are not their kids. Our kids are our kids. Our kids have never engaged in serious self injury or harm to others. Our kids are not them. End of comparison.

On a side note, there was an incident at the center that does reveal a bit that they have engaged in use of technology without understanding how it might be abused. They use a video monitoring system to watch the students. There's a control room for the system where they can watch and listen for undesirable behaviors and deliver the shock without even being in the room. Somebody called into the system once, and managed to shock some of the students multiple times from outside the complex. I will say that was an inexcusable security breech, and does cause me to wonder what else they don't really know about the system they use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aUIhWmD ... re=related

I can only say I'm very uncomfortable, and do find it hard to believe there isn't a better way. Something those people didn't every think of, hear of, or try.

Beyond that, it's their loved ones, their life, and their decision. But that is only based on what I have seen so far. So far, all I've seen are opinions.

All I can say for my own opinion is, it just doesn't feel "right."

Edit: Interesting that the OP polled only for "Horrible" and "Disgusting." How "Aspie" of you!

No worse than a bee sting? Whichever a***hole decided that that was an acceptable pain level clearly has never been stung.

I'm kinda afraid to post this. I really I hate to say it, but after doing some more digging.. well I"m not as convinced as I was yesterday that this is a black and white issue.

It still makes my stomach curl, but apparently their are some circumstances we should remember before passing judgement.

a) These kids have already been through EVERY other sort of treatment. Drugs, Possitive reinforcement, more drugs, mild adversives, ect ect. By the time they get to the hell hole some of these kids have HUGE, life threatening doses of drugs being pumped through them.

b) Not all the kids at the center are on adversives. In fact, the center has succeeded with positive reinforcement when other clinics that specialize in it have failed.

c) The Kids that ultimately end up on the Shock Therapy are the ones that are so violent they routinely hurt themselves and others. They pull out their own hair, bite off chunks of their own tongues, hit and pinch and bite others, etc etc. Given that the average patient only gets shocked once a week, it can be a reasonable trade off.

These aren't kids who are just spacey and rock back and forth, they're violent on a daily basis. They're a danger to themselves and others.

I hate hate hate the fact this place exists, but it seems to do SOME good.
That being said, there are DEFINITELY incidents and practices that need looking at and fixing. Frankly they need to regulate the bloody hell out of the place. (wtb change in management!)

At the very least, we need to:
Make sure all the kids are genuinely a danger to themselves,
Make sure all the kids have already been through the other treatment options without success.
Make sure the shocks never get excessive like in the horror stories we hear about a child getting shocked 60 times in a day.
Make sure they arn't just using the strongest equipment on every child. I have a hunch, that while needed for children with under-sensitivity , other children would react with much.. much.. lower doses. (apparently, the older versions of the backpack, packed less power and didn't effect some of the patients)

I'm not so sure the kids actually have gone through other treatments. Going through other treatments is not a requirement. Some parents just seem totally oblivious (Look at interviews), some can't even reason or say a full sentence. What chance are they to actually understand what is done to their child? There basically seem to be no educated or rich parents. Why aren't the rich kids in that school? Could it be because there are other treatments after all?

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/I-would-love-to-see-the-The-Judge-Rotenberg-Center-shut-down/133491616682944

Personally I'm joining this group.