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Cops and Guards Getting Away With Murder (Taser Edition)

Taser
Taser International is pushing 鈥榚xcited delirium鈥, a poorly-defined condition, into forensics to justify the ridiculously inappropriate use of Tasers
Taser
Eric Balaban,
Former Senior Staff Counsel,
National Prison Project, 老澳门开奖结果
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September 17, 2015

This piece originally appeared at .

鈥淓xcited delirium鈥 might sound like a medical condition, but it鈥檚 not recognized by the American Medical Association. Nor will you find it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the preeminent text for diagnosing mental illness. Yet the so-called condition, in which a person allegedly becomes uncontrollably and fatally manic, has been used as a pseudoscientific smokescreen to protect those who tase people to death, as well as the manufacturers of , from prosecution.

Taser International, the leading manufacturer of stun guns, has latched onto excited delirium, an ill-defined concept that two medical examiners applied in the 1980s as the for three dozen women in South Florida. The notion was debunked, the deaths explained as asphyxiation after the bodies were exhumed and properly autopsied. Nevertheless, its proponents have an elaborate explanation for how excited delirium can strike: a sudden and enormous dump of adrenaline sends a person into extreme psychosis, which overstresses the body and causes death.

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