[Mercat]

A family member born I think about 1940, was hit with what we now belief was bi-polar disorder in his college years. They used Thorazine and shock treatment and basically lobotomized him without surgery. He went around in a daze most of his adult life. Sad. A brilliant man but the cure for his disorder made him a zombie.

[daniel1212]

Notice the crafty response” When told about the program recently, the VA issued a written response: “In the late 1940s and into the 1950s, VA and other physicians throughout the United States and the world debated the utility of lobotomies. The procedure became available [just available] to severely ill patients who had not improved with other treatments. Within a few years, the procedure disappeared [explicitly stating removal, versus use] within VA, and across the United States, as safer and more effective treatments were developed.”

[willk]

Sad. Survives 35 missions only to spend the rest of his life fighting mental illness.

[sport]

The Government doing that was, in my opinion, a crime

[B4Ranch]

That was the most painful article I have read in a long time.

[Sherman Logan]

Sad story.

However, I think it is fair to point out that for at least 20 years the procedure was considered a “miracle treatment,” with its developer receiving a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1951.

IOW, the VA wasn’t performing shady or improper treatments, they were treating patients in compliance with state of the art medical consensus of the day.

Which should, but probably won’t, cause us to look skeptically at popular trends of our own time.

[Gay State Conservative]

As those familiar with Emergency Medicine know ERs,particularly those located in major cities,have their "regulars" or,as we called them,"frequent fliers".One of our frequent fliers was named Betty and she had had a prefrontal lobotomy.In short,it's best to describe this woman's basic state of mind by saying "the lights are on but nobody's home".

It was very sad indeed.