Letters sent re: #StopTheShock #WeAreStillWaiting

Today (4/24/19), is the day of action about the GED shock device used on disabled ‘students’ at the Judge Rotenberg Center in MA. Learn more here.

CW torture, electric skin shock

 

---

To the FDA

CDRH-Center for Devices and Radiological Health
Food and Drug Administration
10903 New Hampshire Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20993

1 (800) 638-2041

DICE@fda.hhs.gov

To whom it may concern at the FDA,

My name is Kit Mead, and I am from Baltimore, MD. I wanted to ask about the proposed ban of the GED device used at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, MA, which uses electric skin shock as an aversive on its disabled ‘students’.

The FDA originally concluded a ban should take place in 2014. Since then, ‘students’ continue to be shocked. I urge the FDA to ban the GED shock devices used at the Judge Rotenberg Center.

As a disabled disability advocate, I was relieved to hear in December that the FDA plans to finalize the ban. But people with disabilities are still being tortured at the Judge Rotenberg Center, and time is of the essence – not one more person should get hurt. When will we see the regulation finalized?

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my email. We are still waiting for the ban to be enacted and hope to see it finalized immediately.

Sincerely,

---

To Congresspeople

[Insert greeting here]

I wanted to write to let you know about a legal form of torture for autistic and other disabled people in the US, the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts. It uses a GED electric skin shock device on its ‘students,’ who live in reality in an institution.

In 2014, the FDA held hearings on whether to ban the use of the GED/electric skin shock as an aversive. They concluded such devices should be banned. In 2018, the the FDA finally released a Unified Agenda stating they were working to finalize the rule that would ban the GED used at the Judge Rotenberg Center.

The FDA has continually said that they are working on finalizing the rule, but we need Congress to hold them accountable. You can find more information and a sample letter to the FDA at autisticadvocacy.org/fdaletter. Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my email. I depend on you to stand up for people with disabilities – can I count on you to write to the FDA?

Sincerely,

---

 

I sent my letters to Congresspeople using Resistbot. (Resistbot also has an ‘editor’ function where you can submit a letter to the editor of your local paper, which I did).  I used my own words and some phrasing from ASAN templates. Learn more about the issue and what you can do here.

autism acceptance month version… ??

[Note: This is prose-poetry.]

I’m not going to lie when I say that I don’t know what to say, that I’ve recycled all my words  for autism acceptance and neurodiversity until I have nearly nothing left to say

and I know remixing scripts is very autistic,  echolalia and pallilalia and all the little things we do when we say anything, whether spoken or movement or using AAC devices.

Maybe I know. Maybe I know. Maybe I know there’s always something left to say, always an argument worth having, a blog post worth writing, an action worth taking.

Maybe I have my own reasons for not always having something to say, having that argument, writing that blog post, taking that action.

I have always loved this community for its rich complexity, despite all its all flaws and imperfections, its exclusions and inclusions and its failures to do justice by swaths of us, but sometimes its championing of all of us and trying to do better.

For all the pride that lights up screens across the globe. How we have worked to take what wasn’t for us and tried to make it for all of us.

I have, often, nearly nothing left to say.  Maybe I know. Maybe I know. Maybe I know that I don’t always have something to say, have to have that argument, write that blog post, take that action. I know I have always loved this community and sometimes that means

I have

nearly nothing left to say.