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13 Votes
24 Comments
Taser Study Refutes Safety Claims
News Type: Event — Seeded on Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:11 PM EST
Article Source: CBCadvertisement
Taser stun guns may not be as safe as their manufacturer claims, according to a study carried out by Chicago researchers, CBC News has learned.
The team of doctors and scientists at the trauma centre in Chicago's Cook County hospital stunned 11 pigs with Taser guns in 2006, hitting their chests with 40-second jolts of electricity, pausing for 10 to 15 seconds, then hitting them for 40 more seconds.
When the jolts ended, every animal was left with heart rhythm problems, the researchers said. Two of the animals died from cardiac arrest, one three minutes after receiving a shock.
The findings call into question safety claims made by Taser International, the Arizona company that makes the stun guns, which are used by dozens of police departments across Canada.
According to Taser International's website, "independent medical and scientific experts have determined Taser devices to be among the safest use-of-force options available."
It's still amazing to me how so many people can die immediately following a tasering and yet the media will still report as if no one knows if it was the tasering that killed them or not.
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7.0
{"commentId":1456667,"authorDomain":"digits"}
IMO, any police officer who tasers for convenience or compliance rather than for safety or his being in imminent danger, needs to be charged with at least manslaughter when a death occurs as a result of his tasering. Bar none.
{"commentId":1456667,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 8 votes
#1 - Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:12 PM EST{"commentId":1456781,"authorDomain":"atonhunter"}
My sentiments as well. The thought of spending time locked away next to a bunch of guys that they put away would make these cops a lot less taser-happy...
{"commentId":1456781,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"atonhunter"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":1456690,"authorDomain":"Wheel"}
Rick Smith, the CEO of Taser International and company co-founder, doesn't think much can be concluded from the Chicago study because it focused on pigs that weigh less than 100 pounds and have a very different physiology from humans.
a lot of human children and some women don't weigh much more than 100 lbs.
{"commentId":1456690,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"Wheel"}
- 7 votes
#2 - Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:21 PM EST{"commentId":1457804,"authorDomain":"digits"}
Oh it's ridiculous altogether, Wheel! I agree.
I am VERY suspicious - as well should everyone - on claims of "safety" when a company has to at least make sure the person you're tasering meets certain criteria.
Did you know another criteria is a good heart to start with?
I *am* a woman weighing a little over 100 and at a "statuesque 5'2 and a half" [LoL]. I *do* have a heart murmur as well as a hole somewhere in one of my something or others.
Do you think I could survive it? I sure don't.
Then the media - after my death - would say "No one is sure why she died." THEN the police - after my autopsy - would blame me for my own death because it was my fault I did not weigh more and have a good heart.
I simply do not understand how anyone can rationalize their safety. Get honest about it! If they had been honest from the start, I think the proper police oversight AND government oversight would have insured their being treated like the lethal weapons they are; And perhaps the deaths and pain could have been avoided because the police would know their significance and NOT have become used to using them as tools of compliance. [Or is this wishful thinking?]
As a result I have only one choice left that I can conscientiously conclude... Ban Tasers!
{"commentId":1457804,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1456724,"authorDomain":"mrhomer4"}
I've been around the law enforcement community and my opion is that Tasers are being used as a first hand convenience rather than a last result of restraint.They should be banned.Mark.:>(
{"commentId":1456724,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"mrhomer4"}
- 6 votes
#3 - Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:38 PM EST{"commentId":1457812,"authorDomain":"digits"}
I agree Mark. Thank you for your comments.
Had they been used as what I think they were orginally adopted for, I do not think we'd be witnessing the declining popularity of taser use.
{"commentId":1457812,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1456733,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
I find it funny, they make one claim and only to forget other things they have said in the past. On one hand, Smith claims Tasers are safe, yet he also admits they are prone to fail. If a Taser discharged all its energy at once, you would be electrocuted.
"With a fairly small investment, you can get a huge
return," says Rick Smith, Taser's chief executive. "But there's a high risk of a lot
of these things failing completely."
{"commentId":1456733,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
- 3 votes
#4 - Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:41 PM EST{"commentId":1457829,"authorDomain":"digits"}
That is surely ironic. To me, this would clearly mean that they are *not* safe.
Again. I always have to think why a company would feel the need to fly in the face of good reason and common sense - and now this study. What are they scared of? Is that what they think the public opinion is hinging on? Safety?
Well if that's what it's hinging on, goodness! We can dissasemble public opinion quite easily on that matter by pointing to all the deaths. There seem to be only so many excuses the company could come up with why each particular person died right?
I'd be curious Taser International's response on each individual's death. How would they spin it?
Who's feel persnickety enough to email them? ;)
Tedd?
{"commentId":1457829,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1458787,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
Mr. Smith has already received a few emails from me :-) And a large number of requests for test data on safety standards testing on their equipment especially around patients with high risk disorders like seizures (me). At first, they were saying no, they don't give that out to the public, so I put on a bit more pressure from the City of Seattle as I work with them on Search and Rescue on a Medical Team and that has changed things just a tad. Hence my comment on the failure mode of a Taser.
Each consumer brand Taser comes with a Lithium Battery Pack that can provide 10 Taser shocks before recharging. This is based on each Taser shock at the standard 2 second burst @ 50,000 volts.
Failure rates in 78% of the units have been a steady state pulse, i.e. a continuous burst lasting 40 seconds @ 50,000 volts. That in all cases will cause third degree burns and a very high chance of death. In the remaining units, some had unstable power supplies that far exceeded the 50,000 volts, again that would be a fatal shock.
Then come the Police Issue Tasers. Four Times the capacity. If one fails, 160 seconds @ 50,000 volts. No question on a death sentence. And the police units are still new, so failures are not occurring, yet, or at least that we have heard of, what happens in a few years after they have been banged around ? Left outside and gotten wet and a bit of corrosion ?
I asked the same. Why no sensing circuit on them for fat density or weight of a person ? A Automatic Heart defibrillator could never get approved without a fully functional and very accurate sensing circuit for this, how in the world does a Taser get past this regulation ? The only reason it does is that it is a weapon, not a medical device and thus does not fall under the FDA regulation. However a defibrillator could stop someone in their tracks also, can stop or start a heart too, same as a Taser. That is my big issue.
{"commentId":1458787,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
- 5 votes
{"commentId":1458864,"authorDomain":"digits"}
I asked the same. Why no sensing circuit on them for fat density or weight of a person ? A Automatic Heart defibrillator could never get approved without a fully functional and very accurate sensing circuit for this, how in the world does a Taser get past this regulation ? The only reason it does is that it is a weapon, not a medical device and thus does not fall under the FDA regulation. However a defibrillator could stop someone in their tracks also, can stop or start a heart too, same as a Taser. That is my big issue.
Yes. Plenty is missing. I mean...there is the entire question of weaponry! Why, then, are some guns outlawed? Couldn't there be a parallel on why tasers need to be?
I never realized your research before Tedd. This needs to be screamed about.
{"commentId":1458864,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1459061,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
Oh that is my Engineer brain at work, I tend to ask alot of very pointed questions :-)
{"commentId":1459061,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1475884,"authorDomain":"MinnieApolis"}
Great questions , Tedd, and a bit of a coup that was to get some emails thru to them so that they actually give some informative answers.
We are beginning to cut thru the BS firewall...
{"commentId":1475884,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"MinnieApolis"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":1476458,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
I always put "return receipt tags" on my emails I sent them so I know exactly when they arrived at Taser and when they were read. So if they site for more then 24 hours I give them a call and ask "Well how do you feel about the email I sent you ?" HAH...I have gotten some good answers, usually I am told it was a "very informative email and we are working on a response" Then when I comment that I find that interesting that you can read unopened mail,...well let say I don't think they like me too much, I ask to many question I guess...oh well :-)
{"commentId":1476458,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1457893,"authorDomain":"DrKnow"}
Tasers have been around long enough to show up on "COPS". It is clear from those episodes that the cops use them at the drop of a hat. Many of the victims were cooperating yet were tasered for not cooperating fast enough. A brother was tasered for asking about why his brother was being arrested. There were 8 to 10 cops on the scene. When they guy was tasered for asking about his brother, his wife was threatened if she did not immediately leave the scene. The cops want immediate compliance and do not want any independent witnesses around. (This was evident in the case of the guy taping a warrantless search).
{"commentId":1457893,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"DrKnow"}
- 6 votes
#5 - Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:32 AM EST{"commentId":1458511,"authorDomain":"digits"}
But as long as citizens lack the ability to question police officers or law enforcement then how are the police officers to remain accountable? [..or has their accountability been delayed only to internal affairs or the FBI - who is overworked on "terrorism" which is funny all by itself considering we're being terrorized by law enforcement ?]
Where is their accountability because it sure isn't coming from their superiors [who defend and justify every taser deployment - even in the face of irrefutable ridiculousness].
It also seems to me that people have the right to be slow. They have the right to go slow; to be in a "condition" [like the pregnant woman who was tasered on the stomach by the cop who would later say he did not know she was pregnant - it was not his right or business to know; it should NEVER have happened.]; to be mentally challenged; to have any label that they or doctors or society would label them.
Every citizen and person in the world have these inalienable rights. I do not think this is novel. It's just another way of saying, "We have the right to be who we are" without getting harmed and especially by law enforcement.
I made this image a few weeks ago and it makes me sad and frustrated to think it's directed toward police officers as well as internet, schoolyard or workplace bullies.
{"commentId":1458511,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1464821,"authorDomain":"digits"}
A biomedical engineer with ties to the company that makes Tasers insists that the stun-guns are safer than Tylenol.
"You have Tylenol in your home? As far as an electronic controlled device killing you, this stuff is safer than Tylenol," Dr. Mark Kroll said Thursday in Las Vegas.
Kroll, an adjunct professor at California Polytechnic State University who specializes in electrical currents, made his comments while addressing a group of 360 doctors, police officers, lawyers and medical examiners attending a three-day conference on sudden death and in-custody deaths.
Kroll and some of the other medical specialists and law enforcement officials who spoke at the conference stressed that Tasers do no harm, despite the outcry over the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish man who died last month after RCMP officers stunned him with a Taser gun at the Vancouver International Airport.
The federal government is examining the case, as are officials from Poland and the B.C. Coroner's office.
Kroll insisted Tasers are safe under all circumstances, and have never been proven to have directly killed anyone. He said they don't output enough electricity to kill, even if people are stunned several times.
There are several myths surrounding the stun-guns that are not true, Kroll said.
"One myth is that these devices can affect the heart. That myth has almost died out but you still see it once in awhile," he said.
"Another myth is that they're more dangerous [if the person being hit with a Taser is on] drugs, but one of my favourite myths is that these devices can harm pacemakers."
But yet, based on the above study..."When the jolts ended, every animal was left with heart rhythm problems, the researchers said. Two of the animals died from cardiac arrest, one three minutes after receiving a shock. "
{"commentId":1464821,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 4 votes
#6 - Wed Feb 13, 2008 2:05 AM EST{"commentId":1466047,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
So typical of these @ss's Do you know who I have my little discussion with about this very subject ?
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., January 17, 2003 –TASER® International, Inc. (Nasdaq: TASR, TASRW), a provider of advanced less-lethal weapons for use in the law enforcement, private security and personal defense markets, today announced with great pleasure the appointment of Dr. Mark W. Kroll to the Board of Directors.
News Release Taser International
The damn guy would not bite the hand that feeds him.
One, he is not a Engineer, not licensed, not a EE, he has a interest in Electric Currents, a first year EE student know far more then this guy does. He is not a MD either, Ph-D.
{"commentId":1466047,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1467021,"authorDomain":"digits"}
I KNEW it. Although he was speaking *as* an independent person, I was confused when the beginning of the article said he had [ties to the company] something to do with Taser International. In that spirit I am pretty sure everyone can chalk anything he says up to hogwash.
Taser, Inc., after all, sees very healthy profits don't they?
[I knew I could leave it to you, Tedd and you'd straighten this out!]
::if i giggled i'd be giggling::
Thanks!
{"commentId":1467021,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":1467216,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
Taser, Inc., after all, sees very healthy profits don't they?
Hah.....Check out who they sell to, all the really "nice" people-Blackwater USA, DOD, export market...
The Parts for a Taser ? Maybe $30, they sell them for $300 retail, $1800 to the police. Are they making money ? Its a disgrace. Lets see looking at figures for stocks owners what do I find ?
Net Sales: $67,717,851
Gross Margins: $43,179,061
Not bad for a start up company....Most take years to even make a profit or break even.
And I made a huge opps. Sorry ! I had the wrong Dr. Mark Kroll when I looked up on the degree, this one does have a Engineering degree, and he is listed as an expert on about everything in this world and who's-who's list, but still does not excuse what he said as its not true. And it does very clearly list his position at Taser International as "Director", so to me, that is somewhat of a conflict of interest.
"One myth is that these devices can affect the heart.
That can be disproved with a watch and checking the heart rate. Also if that was true, then he is calling the entire industry that makes defibrillators also a myth. Sad the Doctor has not studied his history just a bit better on electricity and the heart. It has a very direct effect.
Nearly a quarter of all human deaths is attributed to sudden cardiac death, which results from disturbances in electrical impulse propagation throughout the heart.
History of fibrillation and defibrillation
What is a Taser ? It gives off a electrical impulse, a strong one of 50,000 volts. And he is telling us that is safer then Tylenol ? However to be fair, that is a bit biased, since Tylenol did come out 60 years ago in 1948 and accounts for 35% of the US Market in pain killers. However more people are also injured or killed in their own bathrooms also.....
{"commentId":1467216,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1473466,"authorDomain":"witchofthenorth"}
Healthy profits? Just try Google news for "taser profits" ...
Forbes featured this catchy headline just yesterday: Taser Investors Happily Shocked
Taser attributes the dramatic increases in earnings to new orders from police departments in Texas, Florida, Ohio, Kansas, Tennessee, and California, as well as a decrease in litigation against the company. Three product liability suits were dropped during the fourth quarter bringing the number of wrongful death or injury suits against the company that were dismissed up to 61.
{"commentId":1473466,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"witchofthenorth"}
- 2 votes
#7 - Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:22 AM EST{"commentId":1473534,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
I just love the articles...
Law enforcers simply can't get enough of their favorite stunning device. The sheriff's department of Jacksonville, Fla. requested 450 new Taser X26 devices, while the Cleveland, OH police ordered 175 more.
In 2006, only 20% of U.S. domestic law enforcement agents carried Taser stun guns; in 2007, that figure rose to 30%. Of the company's future success, Dyer remarked, "Taser hasn't scratched the surface of its potential."
Profits ? Hah....Seems like Wall Street Loves these "wonderful people".....great..
Relax, this won't hurt a bit. Stun-gun maker Taser International released its latest financial results and pleased investors by swinging to a second-quarter profit on the back of record-setting sales to law enforcement agencies and the military.
In addition to law enforcement orders, Taser (nasdaq: TASR - news - people ) also said it received a purchase order to provide the U.S. military with an initial 2,400 Taser X26 units and accessories.
{"commentId":1473534,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
- 3 votes
#8 - Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:39 AM EST{"commentId":1475368,"authorDomain":"digits"}
I wonder if cops recieve cash bonuses from Taser, International every time they *don't* taser a white man wearing a "white collar" who is driving a Lexus, BMW, or Mercedes?
{"commentId":1475368,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":1475549,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
Not if you have a copy of Forbes Magazine in your car or if you just married a supermodel either......
Sarkozy Victory Pumps Up Taser
Every time things have gone Nicolas Sarkozy's way in the recent presidential and legislative elections in France, shares of Taser have jumped
Wold said the company had heard Sarkozy planned on purchasing 100,000 Tasers near-term, which equals $120 million in sales.
No wonder they can buy so many doctors to testify that Tasers are safe.
I rarely use the word "hate" however in the case of this company and their actions, I might find a use for it.
{"commentId":1475549,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}
- 4 votes
{"commentId":1475755,"authorDomain":"digits"}
...and die-hard capitalists don't get why capitalism be construed as evil. Like you could find a use for the term "hate" for this company, not such a stretch to see how integrity is out the window when we're talking extreme wealth.
I used to maintain everyone had a price-tag. The question to ask yourself is "what is it?" For me to still maintain this, though, I'd have to concede I have one and I am not ready to do that just yet.
I think it's corporate America's right to have a price tag. However. This is what our [American] system was [in theory] designed to do; at least in how it relates to justice and our government. Checks and balances; Balance of power; right to counsel; justice is blind...blah blah blah...
Um. That's out the window. Watch Michael Moore's "Sicko" for some easily verifiable facts on who was bought for what regarding the insurance industry. All one has to do is watch OJ's trial to see how the one with the most money gets *justice*...
The system is bad and that's where it starts. So we start with something small.
Like ban tasers!
{"commentId":1475755,"threadId":"217310","contentId":"1292188","authorDomain":"digits"}
- 2 votes
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