Proposed legislation would ban aversive therapy in Massachusetts

Judge Rotenberg Center uses, defends practice
Opponents of the use of electric shock therapy to treat severe behavioral issues turned out in force to testify before the Massachusetts Legislature in November, in favor of a bill that would prohibit the use of aversive therapies on disabled individuals.
Only one treatment center in the country — Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, MA —still uses electric shock therapy, in the form of a graduated electronic decelerator (GED), which delivers electric shocks to the skin.
A 2020 Food and Drug Administration ban on the devices was struck down in 2021 as an impermissible attempt to regulate the practice of medicine, but in January 2023, Congress added language to an omnibus bill giving the FDA t...