My name is xxx and I attended the Judge Rotenberg Center. I am writing to ask you to please reconsider your approval of the GED for use on ANY human being. I was placed on the GED about 2 months after arriving. I started out on the GED-1, and during my last few years I was placed on the GED-4.

I worked at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) as a Teacher’s Assistant from January, 2003, through March, 2006, when I quit and left on my own will. I was absolutely shocked and deeply troubled this past summer in 2012 to learn from CNN news (Anderson Cooper 360) that the GED-4 was never FDA-approved. I had always faithfully followed student plans at the JRC and I have shocked many students at the lower end of the autism spectrum many times with both the GED-1 and the GED-4 devices. JRC intentionally misled me (and other staff) for years to believe that the GED-4 was FDA approved, and due to this great deception, I am guilty of carrying out some of the most terrible torturous crimes against helpless and nonverbal students.

The mark that we can see and the hidden scars we can’t both represent what the U.N.’s special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, calls … well, torture. To quote Mendez:

The rights of the students of the JRC subjected to … electric shock and physical means of restraints have been violated under the U.N. Convention against Torture and other international standards.

The U.S. government appears to agree that the practice is insupportable, having been cited in Mendez’s report (p. 83) as stating:

“The use of aversive therapy by JRC has been challenged through a variety of state and federal legislative and judicial actions,”