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."
This doesn't come as any big surprise to me - we use several forms of electrical stimulation in medical circumstances to regulate the heart or to prod it into moving. It shouldn't be "news" that nailing the body with 50,000V (at near zero amperage) is going to have some kind of effects.
It has always struck me that saying the Taser is "safe" is misleading at best. Disrupting the body's nervous system has all sorts of interesting potential consequences.
As I said in an earlier post on the subject, the protocol around using Taser-like devices should be as stringent as that involved in the use of firearms. I can appreciate that there is a "time and place" for any tool, but recent months have shown us too many cases where the device has been used far too casually.
2 comments:
And Taser International is now making a taser gun to fit in a woman's purse!!!!!!
MAS
Let me guess - it's pink too?
Oh it comes not only in purple, but in a leopard print ... how lovely.
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