Judge Applies Nuremberg Code in Kaimowitz Psychosurgery Case
Judges’ Opinion Applying Nuremberg Code in Kaimowitz Psychosurgery Case
During the 1970s Dr. Breggin began his reform work by organizing an international campaign to stop the resurgence of lobotomy and other psychosurgery. For a period of several years, most of his time was spent on this campaign, which led to the creation of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. The best summary of this effort can be found in his book, co-authored with Ginger Breggin, The War Against Children of Color.
Dr. Breggin distributed ten thousand copies of his article in the Congressional Record, which was copied and distributed in even greater numbers by other reformers around the world.
A key event occurred in 1973 at a trial in Detroit, Kaimowitz v. Department of Mental Health, in which a three-judge panel responded to an injunction by Gabe Kaimowitz to stop experimental psychosurgery at the state hospital. The court adopted Dr. Breggin’s expert testimony at the trial and stopped the psychosurgery projects. Dr. Breggin’s article “Psychosurgery for political purposes” provides the best description of the Kaimowitz victory. This court decision — as well as Dr. Breggin’s media appearances, publications, lectures and lobbying in the U.S. Congress — resulted in state hospitals throughout the nation giving up the practice.
Among other victories aimed at stopping psychosurgery, Dr. Breggin wrote Congressional legislation aimed at ending federal funding of psychosurgery and successfully lobbied Congress for the creation of the Psychosurgery Commission, which declared the treatment experimental. Eventually most psychosurgery projects were stopped not only in state hospitals, but also at NIH, VA hospitals and university medical centers.
In June 2002 Dr. Breggin was the psychiatric expert in a psychosurgery case against the Cleveland Clinic that ended with a jury verdict of $7.5 million. After this, the Cleveland Clinic stopped performing the operation. Psychosurgery projects continue to be conducted at Harvard and Brown, but at few if any other places in the United States.
Judges’ Opinion Applying Nuremberg Code in Kaimowitz Psychosurgery Case
Documents the resurgence of psychosurgery in the early 1970s. lobotomy.pbreggin.1972.pdf
“Campaigns against racist federal programs by the Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology.” Journal of African American Men 1:No. 3, 3-22. Winter 1995/96. campaignsagainst.pbreggin.1995.pdf
American Journal of Psychiatry, 140:1101, 1983. (Letter) Dr. Breggin protests the publication of pieces promoting lobotomy. whatcost.pbreggin.1983.pdf
Reprinted with a new introduction in Edwards RB (ed): Psychiatry and Ethics. Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1982. Originally published in the Congressional Record , February 24, 1972, E1602-E1612. First reprinted in Quality of Health Care-Human Experimentation: Hearings Before Senator Edward Kennedy’s Subcommittee on Health, US Senate, Washington, D.C., US Government Printing […]
Divergent Views in Psychiatry, M. Dongier and E. Wittkower, editors. Harper and Row, Hagerstown, MD, 302-326, 1981. Many psychiatric authorities have condoned pyschosurgery precisely because the very principles that find their most extreme expression in lobotomy also find more subtle expression in all the major somatic treatments in psychiatry. psychosurgeryas.pbreggin.1981.pdf
Chapter 23 in Valenstein E (ed): The Psychosurgery Debate. San Francisco, WH Freeman, 1980. An overview of the risks of electroshock therapy, pyschosurgery, and psychiatric drugs. braindisabling.pbreggin.1980.pdf
Breggin, PR. (1975). In W. Fields & W. Sweet (Eds.), Neural basis of violence and aggression (pp.350-391). St Louis: Warren H. Green. Lobotomy and psychosurgery being used as on patients with neither brain disease nor epilepsy. psychosurgeryfor.pbreggin.1975.pdf
Duquesne Law Review 13:841-862, 1975. Several of the nation’s leading psychosurgeons have persistently linked their work to the control of urban violence, ghetto disorders and political dissent. psychosurguryforpolitical.pbreggin.1975.pdf
We are witnessing a worldwide resurgence in lobotomy and psychosurgery. secondwave.pbreggin.1973.pdf