Footnote to the preceding

The Globe & Mail (Canada) reported a few days ago that

[t]asers pose potentially fatal health risks that studies proving their safety don't take into account, a U.S. doctor told the B.C. taser inquiry yesterday.

San Francisco cardiologist and electrophysiologist Zian Tseng became interested in the use and effects of tasers after a taser-related death in San Francisco in January, 2005. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Dr. Tseng suggested tasers could induce cardiac arrhythmia[, which would not show up on an autopsy]. ...

Much of the scientific justification for the safety of tasers is based on formulae that don't examine their use in the "real world," Dr. Tseng said.

"What's not allowed in these theoretical calculations are worst-case scenarios," he said. "Tolerability in healthy volunteers under optimal conditions does not mean safety."

Dr. Tseng also noted several flaws in and concerns about the "safety" studies on tasers:

- Many of the studies were financed by Taser International; in at least once case, researchers were company employees.
- They used simulated stun guns, not actual tasers.
- The heart rate of subjects was monitored before and after the shock but not during it.

Note, too, that in all the videos I've seen demonstrating the device, in every single one, it's applied to the back, not across the chest. So to sum up, the claims for the "safety" of tasers are based on studies financed by Taser International, sometimes done by Taser International employees, performed on prepared, healthy subjects who are likely somewhat apprehensive but surely are not terrified, agitated, exhausted, intoxicated, or stoned, who are not shocked repeatedly, who do not have heart conditions, but who are shocked in a way least likely to affect the heart in a test that does not gather evidence at the time the heart is most likely to be affected.

Pardon me if I don't find that establishing a convincing record about real-world effects.

Footnote: Dr. Tseng also said that shortly after his interview appeared in the Chronicle,

I was contacted by [Taser International, Inc.] directly to reconsider my statements to the media," he said. "They even offered to ... give me grant money for research."

(Brackets in original.)

I suppose he should consider himself lucky they didn't sue him.