Mission Statement - De-Spinning the Pro-Taser Propaganda

Yeah right, 'Excited Delirium' my ass...

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The primary purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for my observations and analysis about tasers, taser "associated" deaths, and the behaviour exhibited by the management, employees and minions of Taser International. In general, everything is linked back to external sources, often via previous posts on the same topic, so that readers can fact-check to their heart's content. This blog was started in late-2007 when Canadians were enraged by the taser death of Robert Dziekanski and four others in a short three month period. The cocky attitude exhibited by the Taser International spokespuppet, and his preposterous proposal that Mr. Dziekanski coincidentally died of "excited delirium" at the time of his taser-death, led me to choose the blog name I did and provides my motivation. I have zero financial ties to this issue.



Sunday, April 18, 2010

Taser International's recent 'Sheep Study' is fatally flawed

The recycle bin awaits...

Ref. Dawes, D., Ho, J., Cole, J., Reardon, R., Lundin, E., Terwey, K., Falvey, D., & Miner, J. (2010). Effect of an Electronic Control Device Exposure on a Methamphetamine-intoxicated Animal Model, Academic Emergency Medicine, 17 (4), 436-443 DOI: 10.1111/j.1553-2712.2010.00708.x


If You're Going to Taser a Sheep, at Least Do It Right!

...in this experiment the authors have failed profoundly in their anesthesia choice. ...in a study designed to look at the incidence of cardiac arrythmia, these folks used an anesthesia well-documented to have effects on the L-type calcium channel and calcium in the heart... You can't study cardiac and vascular regulation when you use an agent that directly affects them. So, we don't use it. ...So, it's unclear how the effects of methamphetamine and exposure of the TASER are supposed to be teased apart from the influence of isoflurane on cardiac contractile function. It's also unclear how to interpret the dosages of methamphetamine and electrical current from a risk management standpoint. If you're going to do a study, it's great to use anesthesia, but you have to be very certain that you know how that anesthesia works and its potential to confound your work. Otherwise, your data are really not useful. [LINK]

LOL.

Poor sheep.

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