Taser International, infamous manufacturer of stun guns that can kill, and serial denier of that risk, has just blinked.
They've just issued new guidelines advising that police avoid aiming towards the front chest. [LINK]
They'll try to slap some lipstick on this pig, but it's fairly clear cut that they're advising to avoid the chest. Hey Dorin, you still involved?
This is huge. This is a tacit admission of a risk that they've either known about, or should have known about, for at least several years. This is a lawsuit "free-fire zone." This is potential bankruptcy, $300M market cap compared to who knows how many associated deaths. This might even be jail time for some of those involved in denying the obvious for so long. Others may face professional misconduct and expulsion from professional societies.
To those that have argued against the message about the risk of death associated with tasers, WE TOLD YOU SO.
And the appeal of the Braidwood conclusions is revealed to be nothing but a delaying ploy - probably tied to the Stimulous Money.
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4 comments:
The new directive from the manufacturer of tasers is a tacit admission to at least 2 mechanisms whereby their product and its use can result in death. First, and most obvious, is the risk that the most important muscle in the human body - the heart - is at risk from ceasing to function, resulting in death from the use of a taser. The second is that an agitated individual, whose need for oxygen is great, may have the very weak muscles which control breathing, depleted and exhausted by the taser ECD device, which uses rapid muscle stimulation. I have called the second taser death mechanism "taser induced asphyxia".
Law enforcement agencies should be troubled that the chest - AKA "The Center of Human Mass" - is now a place to avoid in a taser use. Ideal target areas for taser contact (the legs and lower abdomen) will become very difficult to contact at any distance, with both fish-hook taser probes in place.
But you are correct that the Wall of Taser International Propaganda about safety and lack of responsibility for the hundreds of taser deaths, is crumbling. The "junk-science" they have funded and promoted, will come back to haunt them in a likely avalanche of new and re-filed wrongful death law suits.
I am reminded of the prediction Dr. Terrance Allen made in 1991 about future taser deaths:
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"[Dr.]Terence Allen, a specialist in forensic pathology who served as deputy medical examiner for both Los Angeles and San Francisco coroner's offices, in 1991 linked the taser to fatalities. "With electrical current, Allen says, the chance of death increases with each use." Allen warns, "I think what you are going to see is more deaths from stun weapons."
"The problem is when it starts getting used in less than critical situations," said Allen. "In L.A. they'll shoot you for reaching for your wallet. People need to realize that this isn't 100 per cent safe, and it doesn't have a very good track record. As pathologists, we should warn law-enforcement agencies that the TASER can cause death."
In a 1991 letter to [The Journal of Forensic Sciences] he noted that he was one of only two medical examiners in the L.A. office to list the TASER on a death certificate.
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How totally prophetic Dr. Allen's warnings were.
On a separate note, and regarding what propels the taser nitrogen cartridge to release its gas, here is another diagram:
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/07/15_and_25_foot_cartridge_pr_01.jpg
It is pretty obvious that of the two methods used to puncture gas cartridges, the taser uses a small percussive cap at the bottom, to release the gas. There just isn't any room for the second method of gas release, since that requires a spring mechanism, which must be armed (pulled back) and then released sending the cartridge up against a piercing point.
I maintain that gunpowder is used in that small cap at the bottom of the taser cartridge. There isn't any sign of a spring-loaded trigger.
That means, as you know, that tasers use a material which is controlled by the ATF. If the company has been using gunpowder without telling the ATF, they may be in serious hot water.
It has always been an advantage for the company to AVOID both ATF and FDA "approval". It is my contention that tasers are essentially "medical devices", which work like the old "fibrillators" did [ http://www.springerlink.com/content/y57516q775202518/], AND an ATF controlled device which uses gunpowder.
Here is the short version of the broken link.
http://tinyurl.com/TaserCartridge
Thanks for your comments.
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