03/20/18 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — HAPPENING NOW
For More Information:
Mike Oxford: (785) 224-3865
Cal Montgomery: (312) 813-6816
Priya Penner: (585) 944-3086
Marilee Adamski-Smith: (715) 204-4152
WHO: National ADAPT
WHAT: Disability Rights Protesters Demand FDA Release Long-Delayed Regulations to Ban
Contingent Skin Shock
WHERE: Food and Drug Administration
WHEN: Tuesday, March 20, 2018
NATIONAL ADAPT ACTIVISTS GO TO FDA TO DEMAND IMMEDIATE ACTION TO BAN THE TORTURE DEVICES
03/20/2018 – Washington, D.C. Protesters from the national disability rights group ADAPT have left the site of their 12-day vigil to call for a ban on devices that generate punitive electric shocks and gathered at the Food and Drug Administration to demand immediate action. The UN Special Rapporteur on torture has denounced the devices as a form of torture. “It is unacceptable that our government condones torture of disabled people on American soil, and it needs to stop,” said Anita Cameron, an ADAPT organizer.
Many Americans first learned of the shock devices in use, only at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, MA, during a 2012 lawsuit filed by Andre McCollins. Andre was permanently injured in 2002; when, as an 18-year-old JRC resident, he was tied to a restraint board and shocked 31 times over a 7-hour period. The FDA held hearings in 2014, and in April, 2016, announced that the risks inherent in contingent shock meant it would be banned.
“It’s the FDA’s job to protect our people from dangerous devices masquerading as medical treatment, and Commissioner Gottlieb needs to get the job done,” said Cal Montgomery, from the Chicago ADAPT chapter. Both the Obama and Trump administrations have failed to actually release the regulations, however. ADAPT, which protested JRC in both 2016 and 2017, has been camped outside FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s Washington, D.C. home near Pennsylvania Avenue and L St. NW since March 9.
For decades ADAPT has worked to secure for disabled Americans the same rights and liberties enjoyed by their nondisabled neighbors. Learn more about ADAPT’s history and activities at www.adapt.org, on social media with the NationalADAPT Facebook page and on the @NationalADAPT Twitter, and under the hashtag #ADAPTandRESIST. You can also follow the fight against the JRC shock device at www.adapt.org/jrc and #StopTheShock.
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