Vincent Milletich Project

Interverbal:

"Moreover, Skinner is right. It is not torture. The word "torture" means something specific. What certain parties did in terms of using physical aversives in the past, or still do now, might be disagreeable and I would certainly argue against it on ethical lines, but it is Not Torture" (my emphasis).

This is a project I am putting together to recreate the circumstances of Vincent Milletich's death. Various state governments have a 30 year unsuccessful track record of shutting down The Judge Rotenberg Center. I intend to use the final video along with written evidence of why I believe international pressure is necessary to shut down JRC. Final film copy along with documented abuses will be submitted to Amnesty International for it's consideration to take on JRC.

I have begun to order materials and props to recreate Vincent's death. The project will be well documented using press accounts and court records showing the last minutes of Vincent's life. If you have any information that you feel is pertinent to this project please contact me. My email is listed in the about section.

Update:

I thought I would post young master Matt Brodhead's defense of the Judge Rotenberg Center. You can find it here. Also, JRC's destroying of probable incriminating evidence in a law enforcement investigation found here.

According to his profile, Matt is a 1st year graduate student studying Behavior Analysis at Western Michigan University.

You may ask why I would link to a blog post that I might find offensive by its very nature (supporting extreme physical aversives against children). I post it because I think Matt's view of JRC is exactly what Matthew Israel's extensive propaganda machine conveys to the public and contradictory information about the ethics and honesty of clinicians working at JRC, which there is ample evidence of here, and here, is not persuasive for a 1st year grad student in Behavior Analysis. Matt's post could easily be confused for a PR release for JRC. I don't think Matt is alone in his views nor necessarily in the minority of behavior analysts.

Interesting discussion over on Michelle Dawson's TMob website. This was recently posted about Matthew Israel.

I mainly read here and seldom write.

My name is Sharon and I'm from Israel.

We had a visit here of Dr Matthew Israel last week. Apparently it was a private visit but the local ABA community here could not resist it and invited Dr Israel to lecture about JRC's methodology. The lecture took place at the Zisnman College for Physical Education & Sports within the Wingate Institute and it was organized by the Center for Behavior Analysis in the college together with the Israeli association for ABA.

The invitation/brochure to the lecture presents JRC as using "full implementation of ABA science" with "direct" and "exact" teaching to "help people in high risk".
About Dr Israel it is said that he has "deep knowledge of the ethical, clinical and legal aspects of the issue in North America".

The lecture and the way Dr Israel was presented in front of educators etc. here in Israel are now the subject of letters exchange and criticism here.

Prior to this, the secretary of the local behaviorists association here in Israel, Mr. Michael Ben-Zvi, has been scheduled to take part in the first conference to be held here in Israel by the Israeli autistic selp-advocacy group.
Because Dr. Israel's lecture has been coordinated by the local behaviorists association and after Mr. Ben-Zvi did not express any rejection of JRC's methods and after a letter from Dr Eitan Eldar (head of the ABA program in the Zisman College) failed to do the same thing the Israeli selp-advocacy organization ACI informed Mr. Ben-Zvi that his participation is ACI's (Autistic Community of Israel) symposium (to be held at July the 23rd in Raanana ) is canceled.

Prior to Dr. Israel's lecture (in the Zisman College) the Israeli web site "Special Place" which advertised the lecture in its on-line board decided to take it off after it received information regarding JRC's methodologies.

The Israeli national autism society, Alut, still has not responded to a letter concerning the publication of Dr. Israel's lecture by its family support center (Bet-Loren).

Matthew Israel really isn't out of the mainstream of ABA, he's right there in the thick of it.