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Lorin Koran, MD; Max Fink, MD; Morton G. Miller, MD
State University of New York at Stony Brook

JAMA. 1975;232(11):1126.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Sixty years ago, public hysteria, together with the prejudices of public officials and a few physicians, led to the abandonment of a potentially useful treatment for a serious medical illness.^1,2 Treatment of opiate addiction with maintenance doses of opiates was outlawed for 50 years, and hundreds of thousands of opiate addicts suffered needlessly as a result.³ History is about to repeat itself. Hysteria and prejudices regarding the possible side effects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are now bringing about an abandonment of this treatment for depression, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders for which it has been shown to be relatively safe and quite efficacious.^4,5 A new law (AB 4481) ensures that ECT will cease to be used in California. The law requires that ECT not be used until "all other appropriate treatment modalities have been exhausted" and the decision of the treating physician has been . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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