Claims Over Tasers' Safety Are Challenged

November 26, 2004
Alex Berenson, The New York Times

Taser International, whose electrical guns are used by thousands of police departments nationwide, says that a federal study endorses the safety of its guns, but the laboratory that conducted the research disagrees.

Taser said last month that the government study, whose full results have not yet been released, found that its guns were safe. Since that statement, the company's stock has soared and its executives and directors have sold $68 million in shares, about 5 percent of Taser's stock and nearly half their holdings.

But the Air Force laboratory that conducted the study now says that it actually found that the guns could be dangerous and that more data was needed to evaluate their risks. The guns "may cause several unintended effects, albeit with low probabilities of occurrence," the laboratory said last week in a statement released after a symposium on Tasers, as the company's guns are known, and other weapons intended to incapacitate people without killing them.

Taser said Wednesday that it stood behind its October statement.

Other data presented at the symposium raised questions about one of Taser's key claims about the effectiveness of its newest and most expensive weapon.

Tasers are pistol-shaped weapons that fire electrified darts up to 21 feet, shocking suspects with a painful charge. More than 5,500 police departments and prisons now use Tasers, compared with only a handful five years ago.

Many police officers say that Tasers give them a way to restrain dangerous suspects without using firearms or fighting with them. But civil liberties groups say police often use Tasers on people who are merely unruly or disobedient, not dangerous. Recently, police officers in Miami shocked a 6-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl in separate incidents, prompting widespread criticism.

"The evidence suggests that far from being used to avoid lethal force, many police forces are using Tasers as a routine force option," said Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director of Amnesty International. "The way these weapons are being used in some circumstances could constitute torture or ill treatment."

Amnesty has called for police departments to stop using the guns pending an independent inquiry into their safety. The group will release a report next week documenting police abuse of Tasers, Mr. Goering said.

The growing use of Tasers is disconcerting because their risks have not been properly studied, biomedical engineers say. More than 70 people have died since 2001 after being shocked with Tasers, mainly from heart or respiratory failure.

Taser International says the deaths resulted from drug overdoses or other factors and would have occurred anyway. But coroners have linked several deaths to the weapons, and independent scientists who are authorities on electricity and the heart say that the company may be significantly underestimating the weapon's risks, especially in people who have used drugs or have heart disease.

Taser has performed only minimal research on the health effects of its weapons. Its primary safety studies on the M26, its most powerful gun, consist of tests on a single pig in 1996 and on five dogs in 1999. The company has resisted calls for more tests, saying that it is comfortable with the research it has conducted.

Tasers are largely unregulated and have never been studied for their safety or effectiveness by the Consumer Product Safety Commission or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. But for two years the Defense Department has studied Tasers as part of military research into weapons designed to be effective without being deadly.

In a press release on Oct. 18, Taser said that the military study had found its guns "generally effective without significant risk of unintended consequences."

Rick Smith, the chief executive of Taser, called the study "the latest chapter in a series of comprehensive medical and scientific studies which conclude that Taser technology is safe and effective."

Taser's stock, which closed at $37.47 on Oct. 15, the last trading day before the study was released, rose 60 percent over the next month and peaked at $60.85 on Nov. 15. During the week ended Nov. 12, Taser executives and directors sold 1.28 million shares for $68 million. The company's stock closed Wednesday at $50.51, down 89 cents.

But neither Taser nor the military released the full study, only an excerpt. The full study remains confidential, military officials say. But last week, after the symposium on less-deadly weapons in Winston-Salem, N.C., the Air Force laboratory that conducted the study said that it had not found Tasers were safe.

The guns "may cause several unintended effects, albeit with estimated low probabilities of occurrence," the laboratory said. "Available laboratory data are too limited to adequately quantify possible risks of ventricular fibrillation or seizures, particularly in susceptible populations."

Ventricular fibrillation is a disturbance of the electrical circuitry of the heart that causes cardiac arrest in seconds and death in minutes. Taser says that its weapons do not produce enough current to cause ventricular fibrillation, but scientists who are authoritative on fibrillation say that the company has not done enough research to know whether that contention is accurate.

Taser said Wednesday that the military had reviewed and approved its October statement before the company released it.

An Air Force scientist presented data at the symposium last week showing that repeated Taser shocks caused pigs to become acidotic - a dangerous condition in which the pH of the blood drops. A 1999 study by the Justice Department suggested that "deaths following Tasers' use may be due to acidosis."

People who have been hit repeatedly by Tasers should receive medical monitoring, said Dr. James Jauchem, the Air Force scientist. A spokeswoman for the Air Force said Wednesday that Dr. Jauchem was on vacation for Thanksgiving and not available for additional comments.

Dr. Jauchem also presented data calling into question the company's assertion that the Taser X26, its newest gun, is especially effective even though it fires a smaller charge than the company's older weapon, the M26. Taser has said that the X26 fires a special kind of electric pulse that works better than traditional stun guns.

But Dr. Jauchem said the shape of the X26's electric pulse had only a minor effect on the amount of muscle contraction it produced.