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Have you heard of excited delirium? Well if you haven’t, that’s to be expected. It’s been listed on death certificates as the cause of death only about some 276 times between 2000 and 2021, according to Reuters. It’s described as a potentially fatal state of extreme agitation.
“Described as”? By who?
Well, not by anyone in the medical or psychological fields. You won’t find it in either the DSM or the International Classification of Diseases. So if it’s not a known condition, how is it making it onto all of these death certificates? To answer that, let’s have a look at the people who have it as their listed cause of death. They are almost always:
Young black men
In police custody
Who have just been tasered.
Hmm. I wonder if a pattern can be divined from that.
I also wonder if we can guess, based on these limited facts, where the diagnosis comes from? Luckily we don’t have to guess. According to that Reuters report, it’s the company Axon — formerly known as Taser International — that is quick to come to the rescue of medical examiners whenever someone dies in police custody shortly after having been tased. “Excited delirium” is the cause of death they recommend listing. Because, surely it wouldn’t be the tasering itself. If it were, then Axon might be open to incalculable lawsuits.
Here’s how this went down. Despite excited delirium not being an accepted thing in medical or psychological circles, in 2009 a task force with the American College of Emergency Physicians bizarrely put out a statement accepting it as a real thing. It stated in part:
…Usually agitated, often speaking or yelling uncontrollably and pacing or running with no purpose. They often threaten others verbally or physically; they sweat profusely, appear ill, and are unable to control themselves. Often, their condition is associated with mental disorders or the use of drugs such as cocaine.
To me, that sounds like the emergency physicians were stepping out of their lane a bit, into the realm of psychiatry. So did the psychiatrists. The American Psychiatric Association responded in 2020:
The concept of "excited delirium" (also referred to as "excited delirium syndrome" (ExDs)) has been invoked in a number of cases to explain or justify injury or death to individuals in police custody, and the term excited delirium is disproportionately applied to Black men in police custody. Although the American College of Emergency Physicians has explicitly recognized excited delirium as a medical condition, the criteria are unclear and to date there have been no rigorous studies validating excited delirium as a medical diagnosis.
And guess what. Three of the ACEP task force members turned out to have connections to Axon, according to the Reuters report. Big surprise.
Plain and simple — “excited delirium” is a pseudoscientific term for a made-up condition, that was invented to make it look like there was some natural cause when a person died after an altercation with police, often involving a taser.
And I’m glad to report that we’re likely to see it much less in the future. A few days ago, California banned “excited delirium” as a diagnosis for cause of death in the state. An actual cause of death, that exists, must be determined.
I don’t imagine Axon is too happy about this news. If we see them fight the new bill, I will certainly be among those wondering why.
We live in such a world!