November 13, 1995
Web posted at: 4:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT)
From Correspondent Brian Jenkins
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (CNN) -- Appeals are under way in a Massachusetts legal battle over aversive therapy, a controversial method of treating retarded and autistic patients who repeatedly try to hurt themselves. Many state officials have been trying for a decade to shut down the behavioral program.
At issue is remote-controlled skin shock devices used at Rhode Island's Judge Rotenberg Educational Center. Its results are striking. Before treatment, severely self-abusive patient Mike Shields had to be kept in restraints because he would bang his head uncontrollably. (360K QuickTime movie) Now, he moves more freely, with his impulses curbed by the electric shock.
The shock is painful, but the burning sensation lasts only a few seconds.
The device was developed on the premises of the Behavior Research Institute, established in 1971. It was renamed the Judge Rotenberg Center last year, in memory of the man who kept Massachusetts officials from stopping the program a decade ago.
The center itself is in Rhode Island, but group homes for the students are in Massachusetts.
Two years ago, when Philip Campbell took over as commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation, he tried to again decertify the center. It sued, claiming harassment, and got a two-week trial last July.
Some parents with children undergoing the aversive therapy said they resent those who claim using punishment to stop harmful behaviors is cruel and unnecessary.
Susan Phelan fought to get her son Terry into the program three years ago and to get the required court order permitting the skin shocks.
Now 21, retarded, and with cerebral palsy, Terry used to beat his head so much he lost most of his eyesight. Skin shocks tempered the self-abuse long enough for doctors to discover and treat his chronic ear infections. (110K AIFF sound or 110K WAV sound)
Last month, Elizabeth Lastaiti, the judge in Bristol County, Massachusetts, came down hard on the state, ordering it to pay the center $1 million for legal costs. The judge found that "high-ranking government officials have been deliberately untruthful on the witness stand, have expended public funds in order to pursue baseless allegations, and launched investigations on court personnel." That behavior, Lastaiti wrote, "constitutes pervasive public corruption."
"We knew that the trial had gone well," said Matthew Israel, the founder of the Behavior Research Institute. "We didn't know how courageous this judge would prove to be." Israel said he expects the program's opponents to keep fighting, and they are.
Because the Massachusetts attorney general is appealing the judge's ruling, Campbell declined to be interviewed for this story.
His department issued a brief statement that read in part, "We believe that the court's decision attempts to usurp the executive branch's authority to regulate and monitor services."
Massachusetts State Rep. David Cohen has been pushing nine years for passage of a bill banning aversive therapy altogether. He said he'll try again next year, because he doesn't agree with the most recent court decision. (100K AIFF sound or 100K WAV sound)
The center's staff and parents think students are the winners in this latest courtroom battle. But they know they may have to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to win the war.
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