03/12/18 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – ACTION HAPPENING NOW
For More Information:
Mike Oxford: (785) 224-3865
Cal Montgomery: (312) 813-6816 (text only)
Priya Penner: (585) 944-3086
Marilee Adamski-Smith: (715) 204-4152
WHO: National ADAPT
WHAT: ADAPT demands to end the torture in Canton, Massachusetts institution
WHERE: The White House and in front of FDA Director Scott Gottlieb’s house,
Pennsylvania Ave NW & L St NW, Washington, DC 20037
WHEN: Monday, March 12, 2018, happening now
ADAPT Goes to the White House to Ask President Trump to Ban Torture Devices on Disabled Children and Adults
The national disability rights organization ADAPT is entering the fourth day of a vigil outside the home of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director Scott Gottlieb’s home. The FDA has been sitting on regulations for two years that would end the institution’s use of the electrified aversive to punishment intellectually disabled children, youths and adults. Today we are at the White House to ask President Trump to step in and help put an end to the use of electro shock devices that are used at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) is the only place in the US that still uses this inhumane treatment.
The group of about 50 activists has weathered frigid temperatures to convince Gottlieb to end the use of electro shock devices at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Massachusetts. Their protest has earned a mix of encouragement and complaints from Gottlieb’s neighbors who have donated to the cause in some cases and called the police in others. What they have not encountered is Gottlieb who refuses to engage them and seems content to allow the continued abuse of disabled people. “I do not understand how he can stand by and do nothing, while every day more disabled people are tortured,” said ADAPT organizer Anita Cameron.
This is not a new issue for the organization that led the fight to save Medicaid last summer. ADAPT visited the JRC in 2016 and last spring at the FDA which they tried and speak to Gottlieb but instead were met with 88 arrests. “We have tried time and again to get them to do the right thing and they refuse to do anything,” said Dawn Russell “They have had these regulations done for two years now. We are not going to let them put this off any longer! There is no way they would tolerate these horrors being perpetrated against nondisabled people.”
The group says they are going to stay until Gottlieb takes action. “We will not be ignored; we are in this fight for members of our community who are being treated in the most inhumane ways imaginable,” said Mike Oxford, an organizer of Kansas ADAPT. We should be able to count on our government to protect all disabled Americans from torture. This shouldn’t be something we have to fight for!”
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 National ADAPT 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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