Chicago study calls Taser's safety claims into question - CBC News

Introduction:

The growing number media articles reporting injury and death caused by
Taser’s shock being inflicted on humans: seniors, a confused and fatigued Polish
immigrant to Vancouver airport who spoke no English and who died after being
tasered. Tasers cause pain, intense pain, and violent death. This is not self
defense, it is government sanctioned torture.

When we speak of taser weapons are we referring to one company who
manufactures these lethal weapons under their trade name of TASER:  also meaning
a stun-gun? I ask this question because there are at least three companies in
the United States manufacturing stun-guns which have the attributes of
the weapon commonly identified as a ‘Taser’.

The TASER is manufactured in Scottsdale Arizona.  BE Meyers & Co. Inc, in
the USA, manufactures a similar weapon, as does Stinger Systems Inc. in Tampa
Florida. Stinger is the only company I believe that offers online client
training of the use of their stun gun/Taser.

In a previous article I referred to the product warnings posted by TASER on
their web site, please view them they are labeled Citizen Warnings (very Soviet…) this is in reference to the
possibile death if you happen to suffer with a particular ailment, or even if
the person is under stress.

In the news item followingI understand that when reading about volunteer pigs
being killed it is difficult to imagine a human as a substitute to the animal,
but remember we are dealing with situations in which humans are being treated in
a similar manner as the unfortunate pigs, that is, inhumanely.

Our police forces, and our armed forces overseas are using Tasers where they
have been issued as official equipment, IN HUMANITIES SAKE THIS PRACTICE MUST
STOP, PLEASE!

Chicago study calls Taser's safety claims
into question

Last
Updated: Wednesday, January
30, 2008 | 6:05 AM
ET

Source:
CBC
News

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."

Taser director
Mark Kroll has also published a paper called
Safety of Taser Electronic Devices, in which he says when electricity kills, it
is an immediate death that occurs within four seconds because electricity can't
linger in a living being's body "like a poison."

But Bob Walker,
one of the lead researchers on the Chicago study, said the fact that
one of the pigs died three minutes after being stunned is significant.

"It says
that the effect of the Taser shot can last beyond the time when it's being
delivered," he said. "So, after the Taser shock ends, there can still
be effects that can be evoked and you can still see cardiac effects."

Thomas Smith, the co-founder of Taser
International, is set to testify before the parliamentary committee on public
safety and national security in Ottawa
on Wednesday, where he'll face questions on the safety and use of the weapons.

Officers
need to ask questions: researcher

Dr. Andrew
Dennis, a Chicago-based trauma surgeon and
police officer who worked on the study, said if Tasers can affect pigs, more research
needs to be done to study how safe the stun guns are. In the meantime, police
should question when, and on whom, they use the devices, he said.

"The
officers need to question themselves and ask themselves, 'Is this the
appropriate situation for this device?' " Dennis
said. "They need to have the understanding that this is not a truly benign
device.

"What I
would not want to see is an individual police officer thinking that this device
can [be] used with impunity, because I think there are certain risks to this
device."

Stun gun
safety was called into question after Robert
Dziekanski, a 40-year-old Polish man, died at Vancouver International Airport
after being shocked with a Taser by police on Oct. 14, 2007. Dziekanski's death
renewed calls for a moratorium on Taser use.

'The human
studies are clearly much more relevant'

Other Taser
studies have been done on pigs and humans in the past — some finding medical
problems with the stun guns, and others not — but the Chicago researchers said
they wanted to do a study where subjects were exposed to longer bouts of the
guns' electrical currents.

Because the
researchers opted for 40-second jolts, their ethics board wouldn't allow them
to use human subjects.

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.

Smith said studies done on humans have
shown Tasers don't pose a serious health threat.

"The
human studies are clearly much more relevant to policy-makers, and to people
that are interested in the science of how Tasers affect people," he said.

Dr. Jeffrey
Ho, a researcher who has studied stun guns in the past,
but was not involved in the Chicago
study, stressed that the guns may not have the same effect on people as they
did on the pigs in Chicago.

"I think
animals are good surrogates for research models in some situations," said
Ho, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Minnesota.
"In my modeling, I prefer to use humans."

However, pig
studies have been used as evidence in arguments for and against stun guns in
the past. Even the Taser International website points to studies on pigs in
which the outcomes suggest the stun guns aren't a serious safety risk.