I seriously doubt George Floyd was experiencing Excited Delirium. Even from the little bit of video he appeared to exhibited none of the symptoms, including babbling incoherently.
O.K. How about this - the question at hand was “Is there any support for this being a real condition”. I’ve provided multiple credible medical sources who say that it is. Also, I never said (nor has anyone else that I know of) claimed the Floyd’s cause of death was ExDS.
The second part of the question was why it always involved people in police custody. The answer to that is “That’s who gets called when someone starts behaving in a bizarre manner. It may also happen when a person with other medical conditions and, while under the influence of something, resists the police who are effecting an arrest. They won’t die when interacting with Joe Citizen because Joe doesn’t want to get anywhere near them, nor should he.” The police aren’t the only common denominator in these cases. Lets not forget the person resisting,
Finally, remember that ExDS is a syndrome and, like any syndrome, not all elements will be present in every case.
Actually, your source explicity stated: “it has not been ratified as a diagnosis by medial organizations such as the American Medical Association or the American Psychiatric Association (APA)” which I think sums this up well. There’s a loose set of symptoms that go by that name, but not an actual diagnosable medical condition. So it’s not ‘real’ in the sense that I’d mean real, especially in terms of being diagnosed as a cause of death over anything else done to the person.
That’s not an actual explanation, and notably none of your sources say that it is. That explanation doesn’t account for people who engage in similar behavior without police involvement… unless you’re saying that the key symptom is ‘resists the police who are effecting an arrest’. That would, of course, explain why it never seems to cause deaths outside of police custody, but it’s because of the circular logic that the syndrome can only manifest if police are involved and the person resists them.
So is what you’re saying is that if someone resists the police, one can ‘correctly’ diagnose ExDS and blame a death on it? Because that’s exactly what I’m getting at by asking whether it’s real or just a case of ‘police killed this guy’… from your sources and your discussion of the George Floyd case, it appears that ‘resisting the police’ is enough to warrant diagnosing it (or at least bringing it up), it doesn’t seem to actually require any other symptom to diagnose.
Can you maybe, just possibly, see why someone might be more than a little suspicious of a syndrome who’s only required symptom is ‘resists the police’ and can supposedly be a cause of death? That it’s maybe just a tad bit too convenient for the police when people ‘happen’ to die in police custody?
I’ll admit that I can’t locate the AMA paper that acknowledged the existence Of ExDS. I was surprised when I saw it but didn’t save the link. So, lets assume the AMA does not agree that its a thing. What about the other two medical sources I cited? The OP asked if was there any support not, was support “unanimous.” I find the ER docs association especially telling. They are the ones who deal with it.
Here is another, somewhat technical, medical link - Excited Delirium - PMC From that - “For instance, one important study found that only 18 of 214 individuals identified as having EXD died while being restrained or taken into custody.6 If anything, the possible association with other life-threatening syndromes only gives impetus to the need for critical emergency medical intervention when encountering a person thought to be in a state of excited delirium.”
It has been asked “Why don’t people NOT in police custody die from ExDS?” You are missing the point about police interaction. If death from the syndrome “requires” restraint and maximal physical exertion, how else is that going to happen? Its not circular logic. Perhaps, if the police aren’t called or don’t forcibly take the person into custody, they won’t dies from ExDS. Is that what you want? Just let the person go on their way? The training for police here is to treat it as a medical emergency. Wait for medics if safe to do so. But if its not, at least five officers should take the person into custody. Tasers may be effective where other tools (pepper, batons other pain compliance) may not be.
Also, I don’t know why you are putting words into my mouth. I never said resisting police is enough to diagnose . It is a SYNDROME. There is no single test for it -just like most other syndromes. There are things found to be common in most/all of the cases. I am not going to list them all here. Resisting police is not a required symptom, nor is death (as is evidence in the 18 of 214 figure mentioned above). When people die from complications from ExDS, its a perfect storm of conditions - (binge)drug use, other medical conditions and extreme physical exertion. When people do die after being engaged by the police what IS the cause of death, if not ExDS (technically, cardiopulmonary arrest)? Is there some grand conspiracy by the MEs to cover up for the cops? Does that conspiracy extend to the American College of Emergency Physicians?
Everyone has the right to be suspicious. There is debate about the condition. I’ll side with the doctors who face this stuff on the front line. I’ll repeat what I said before OP wanted to know if there is (credible) support for the diagnosis, Cleary, the answer is “Yes”.
I don’t think anyone posted in this thread about the following case. The article below is regarding a man whose autopsy report claims that he died of Excited Delirium due to Methamphetamine Toxicity. You can decide for yourself how likely that possibility is by watching the video- the same video the Grand Jury never got to see. The article mention the reason given for why they didn’t see it.
So what you’re saying is that there is literally some support, and that’s enough for a technical answer of ‘there is support’ to one particular line in the OP that I wrote. That’s fine, but as the person who wrote the OP, that doesn’t provide a real answer, and it’s become more and more clear what the real answer is as the thread has continued. As I’ve said before, it’s clear that the term ‘Excited Delirium’ is used, but the support for it being a real condition that causes death rather than a loose term used for a few symptoms is rather lacking.
What I want is not not hear repeated fallacious appeals to emotion mixed with fallacy of the excluded middle. To use the example provided, there is quite a lot of middle ground between ‘leave the guy on the loose causing trouble’ and ‘take the guy to jail rather than a mental health facility, choke him for six minutes including two minutes where he is not moving, then restrain his unconscious body for eleven minutes, then call EMS reporting that he has ceased breathing, then have an ME state that excited delirium, and not the choking, is the cause of death’.
There is a huge bias in the legal system to favor police over their victims, yes. Pretending that this massive systemic bias doesn’t exist and sneeringly referring to it as a ‘grand conspiracy’ indicates that you are simply dismissing the real world in favor of a ‘blue line’ defense of bad police. I try to give ‘cops’ (including former cops and ardent defenders) the benefit of the doubt on their bias, but when you keep making arguments like ‘What do you want to do? Just let the guy run around unattended?’ (which has nothing to do with a cause of death) and ‘Oh, you think there’s bias in the legal system to support cops at the expense of their victims? LOL conspiracy theorist’ it’s pretty clear what’s going on.
x-ray vision posted a really good example of a real-world case of an ‘Excited Delirium’ death where a cop held his hands on a man’s neck for six minutes, two minutes of that after his body went limp, then put his non-moving body into a restraint chair, then eleven minutes later called EMS because he wasn’t breathing. I think that in a case like this, the SIX MINUTES of neck restraint (commonly called ‘choking’ by us laymen) and restraining a body that isn’t even breathing, then waiting 11 minutes to call EMS might have a bit more to do with the death than the guy using drugs.