I found out by word of mouth (a researcher in the field). Google reveals the following (for instance):

http://books.google.com/books?id=CQw...eizure&f=false

The researcher seemed to think that seizure and headache were taken very seriously by ethics boards with respect to approval of TMS for healthy subjects (basically it was hard to get ethical approval to run trials on this in the US). I wonder where the ethics people were getting their concern about the procedure from?

Like ECT there simply isn't much known about how it effects people long term... With ECT we simply don't know much beyond 6 month follow up (what studies were done were typically unfavourable so they simply stopped doing them). Most of the people who do TMS studies... Have shares in TMS companies or whatever (trouble with independent research as I mentioned above). I dunno. Same problem in psychiatry generally, really.

I tend to think that when all other methods have been exhausted then it is probably worth a go... But generally... I'd really do my best with psychological / social intervention before chemical / electrical. But that is my personal preference, I suppose.