Well intentioned medical breakthroughs, with unforeseen consequences:
• Thalidomide was on the market for five years before it was withdrawn.
• Frontal lobotomies were considered appropriate from the 1930’s through to the mid-sixties (the physician who pioneered the procedure, Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz received the Nobel prize in Medicine in 1949 for his discovery)
• Vaginal mesh implants, promoted by the Australian Medical Association, were introduced in the late 1990s as a routine treatment for urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. It took some time to become apparent but the device caused irreparable damage to tens of thousands of women (incontinence, dyspareunia, vaginal wall protrusion, systemic autoimmune responses and intractable pain) Billions of dollars in lawsuits followed.
Interestingly none of the above had undergone any form of clinical trial to confirm safety and efficacy.
Lobotomies are a type of psychosurgery, the aim of which is to modify behaviour by causing brain damage. Psychosurgery (renamed to psychiatric neurosurgery) is currently legal in several states. Bans and restrictions in NSW, NT and Queensland are relatively recent, in about the last two decades. Having said this, psychosurgery is rarely done in Australia.
The last recorded lobotomy in the United States was performed by Dr. Walter Freeman in 1967 and ended in the death of the person on whom it was performed.
I saw somewhere recently an old news clipping in which a pioneer of lobotomy in some public venue was bewildered by hostility to the procedure & had come with cards of appreciation from former patients.
Well intentioned medical breakthroughs, with unforeseen consequences:
• Thalidomide was on the market for five years before it was withdrawn.
• Frontal lobotomies were considered appropriate from the 1930’s through to the mid-sixties (the physician who pioneered the procedure, Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz received the Nobel prize in Medicine in 1949 for his discovery)
• Vaginal mesh implants, promoted by the Australian Medical Association, were introduced in the late 1990s as a routine treatment for urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. It took some time to become apparent but the device caused irreparable damage to tens of thousands of women (incontinence, dyspareunia, vaginal wall protrusion, systemic autoimmune responses and intractable pain) Billions of dollars in lawsuits followed.
Interestingly none of the above had undergone any form of clinical trial to confirm safety and efficacy.
I hadn't realised that lobotomies lasted until the mid-60s.
Lobotomies are a type of psychosurgery, the aim of which is to modify behaviour by causing brain damage. Psychosurgery (renamed to psychiatric neurosurgery) is currently legal in several states. Bans and restrictions in NSW, NT and Queensland are relatively recent, in about the last two decades. Having said this, psychosurgery is rarely done in Australia.
The last recorded lobotomy in the United States was performed by Dr. Walter Freeman in 1967 and ended in the death of the person on whom it was performed.
I saw somewhere recently an old news clipping in which a pioneer of lobotomy in some public venue was bewildered by hostility to the procedure & had come with cards of appreciation from former patients.
There was a high mortality following the procedure
In the remainder it seems there was a very mixed picture, some who had suffered from severe psychoses became less agitated and more manageable.
Some were left severely brain damaged. Others were able to leave the hospital, or became more manageable within the hospital.
There was a resurgence in the 1970s. Dr Peter Breggin reported in the 1970s that children as young as 3 had been lobotomised.