Pete Earley

(4-28-15) A woman with schizophrenia, who was repeatedly shot with a 50,000 volt Taser while in jail restrained with handcuffs and leg shackles, died from “excited delirium,” according to the Virginia Medical Examiner’s Office.

In an editorial in today’s Washington Post, the newspaper described that ruling as being “troubling for several reasons.” My former colleagues at The Post have been aggressively reporting on the death of Natasha McKenna ever since I revealed nearly three months ago the violent circumstances surrounding the 37 year-old black woman’s death while in custody. Here is a snippet from the Post editorial.

Medical examiners around the country have cited ‘excited delirium’ as a cause of death with increasing frequency for the past decade or so, almost exclusively in cases involving civilians — arrested and prison or jail inmates — who die in struggles with law enforcement officers. Not infrequently, those deaths have involved the use of stun guns, usually Tasers, by police…

The American Civil Liberties Union, among others, has cast doubt on ‘excited delirium’ as a cause of death, suggesting it is used mainly to give cover to excessive use of force by law enforcement…That point is reinforced by the fact that neither the American Medical Association nor the American Psychiatric Association appears to recognize ‘excited delirium’ as a medical or mental health condition…Outside of the medical examiner’s profession, the term does not seem to occur in medical textbooks.

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4-27-2015   Yesterday I published a blog about the controversy surrounding Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and his colleagues’ JAMA article calling for states to begin constructing modern day asylums. I mentioned two points of view — Emanuel’s and Dr. Lloyd Sederer’s. Today I am posting the friendly debate that the two men had during last week’s National Council For Behavioral Health’s conference. This video is 30 minutes long and courtesy of the council. 

 

 

Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel and two of his colleagues from the Department of Medical Ethics and Health at the University of Pennsylvania, have caused a dust up by suggesting that one way to improve long-term psychiatric care is by bringing back mental asylums.

They raised this premise in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January.

As you might suspect, a call for resurrecting mental asylums outraged many advocates who have been pushing for decades to close all state hospitals in favor of community based treatment services.

Here is a sampling of what Emanuel, along with Dominic A. Sisti, PhD., and Andrea G. Segal, MS, wrote:

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FROM MY FILES FRIDAY (4-24-15) Eight years have passed since Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 persons on the Virginia Tech campus before turning a gun on himself.  In an appearance on Anderson Cooper’s 360 show a few days later, I criticized the state’s “imminent danger” involuntary commitment standard and complained about Virginia’s inadequately funded community mental health system. The state has lowered its commitment standard but has stubbornly refused to pour more money into much needed community services. 

The most meaningful way for us to remember and honor those who died that awful day is by adequately funding community mental health care services, something that a report issued by NAMI found is not being done.

 

From Anderson Cooper 360, CNN – April 20, 2007

I was deeply saddened to learn that Natalie Fuller, the 28 year-old daughter of Doris Fuller, ended her own life recently. In today’s Washington Post, Doris writes poignantly about Natalie’s  six year struggle with her mental illness.

I was aware from Doris that Natalie, who I met briefly when she was in a local hospital, was having trouble. I was deeply touched by Doris’s tireless devotion to her daughter and Natalie’s spirit. I am so sorry that her life ended this way.

Thank you Doris for your courage and for sharing Natalie’s life story with us.

The “Demons” Got My Beautiful, Loving Daughter

By Doris A. Fuller

Published in The Washington Post  on April 21

I lost my darling daughter Natalie to mental illness last month. She killed herself a few weeks short of her 29th birthday by stepping in front of a train in Baltimore.

Natalie and I wrote a book together when she was 16: “Promise You Won’t Freak Out: A Teenager Tells Her Mother the Truth About Boys, Booze, Body Piercing, and Other Touchy Topics (and Mom Responds).” The idea of a teenager telling the truth about her secrets was such a startling concept that we were feature-page headliners in the Baltimore Sun and about two dozen other newspapers, went on TV coast to coast, including on one of the morning shows, and got paid to give speeches. “Oprah” called.

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We turn to medical professionals for help. Sadly, as this email shows, some practitioners are not as benevolent as we might hope.

Dear Pete,

My adult daughter, who is in her twenties, has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Late last year, she told me she was going to harm herself. I took her seriously because she had made a suicide attempt five months earlier. Fortunately, our police department has Crisis Intervention Team trained police officers and one came to our house and skillfully talked our daughter into going to a local hospital to be evaluated.

She was transported by ambulance at about 5:30 pm. Our daughter was still waiting in the ER by 11 p.m. and became distraught. I told the staff that she needed to take her medication, SAPHRIS, because it was wearing off. But they told me the hospital pharmacy did not have SAPHRIS available. I had some in my car, but when I said that I would go get it, I was told that wasn’t allowed.

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