Brooks Walsh hadn't questioned whether 'excited delirium syndrome' was a legitimate medical diagnosis before the high-profile police killings of Elijah McClain in Colorado in 2019 and George Floyd in Minnesota in 2020.
Reviewed by Megan Craig, M.Sc.Oct 16 2023 Brooks Walsh hadn't questioned whether "excited delirium syndrome" was a legitimate medical diagnosis before the high-profile police killings of Elijah McClain in Colorado in 2019 and George Floyd in Minnesota in 2020.
Excited delirium is not listed in the standard reference book of mental health conditions, nor does it have its own diagnostic code under a system used by health professionals to identify diseases and disorders. No blood test or other diagnostic test can confirm the syndrome. Most major medical societies, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, no longer recognize excited delirium as a legitimate medical condition.
"We were right all along," Verdell Haleck said in response to the ACEP vote. "Now our hopes are that the term can never be used again to cause pain and suffering for another family in their pursuit of justice." 'This drastically affected our lives' Nearly 14 years ago, Patrick Burns, 50, died after sheriff's deputies hogtied him and shocked him multiple times with Tasers in Sangamon County, Illinois, according to court documents. A medical examiner concluded the official cause of death was excited delirium.
Funding from Taser International, Axon's former company name, sponsored some of the research forming the basis of ACEP's white paper supporting the excited delirium theory, according to a 2017 Reuters investigation. The 19-person task force that drafted the 2009 paper included three people who provided paid testimony or performed consulting work for Taser, that report found. KFF Health News called eight of the task force members but none agreed to interviews.
In June, just months after the National Association of Medical Examiners decided excited delirium should no longer be listed as a cause of death, the county coroner changed Patrick Burns' official manner of death to homicide. The coroner concluded he had suffered brain damage due to a lack of oxygen after being restrained on his stomach, not from excited delirium."It's more than just an unfortunate story," Richard Burns said. "This drastically affected our lives.
Related StoriesThe AMA decided to study the issue. Its subsequent report firmly sided with the medical students and, in 2021, the AMA delegates issued a strong condemnation of excited delirium as a clinical diagnosis. This spring, the group issued a statement saying it no longer recognized excited delirium as a diagnosis but stopped short of retracting the 2009 white paper. And until this month's vote, it hadn't taken any steps to prevent its name and policy statement from being used by defense attorneys defending police in court cases involving in-custody deaths.
One of the 2009 white paper's co-authors, Deborah Mash, a retired professor of neurology at the University of Miami, declined an interview but wrote in an email that the task force that penned the white paper included some of the most respected thought leaders in emergency medicine at the time, who sought to suggest best practices for treating patients with such symptoms.
Clinical documents from ACEP and other organizations have described the same cluster of symptoms at various times as hyperactive delirium, agitated delirium, or restraint-related cardiac arrest. Defense lawyers might argue the same concept using those terms or rely on other medical conditions to explain a death rather than law enforcement officials' use of force.
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