Posted on 04/14/2005 10:09:57 AM PDT by Sax
Health - HealthDay
U.S. Executions by Lethal Injection May Not Be Humane
1 hour, 3 minutes ago Health - HealthDay
THURSDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- Prisoner executions by lethal injection in the United States may not be painless or humane, and may not even meet veterinary standards for putting down animals.
So claims a research letter in this week's issue of The Lancet.
The authors concluded that prisoners executed by lethal injection may have experienced awareness and unnecessary suffering as they died because they weren't properly sedated. Anesthesia during lethal injection is essential to minimize the prisoner's suffering.
Lethal injection involves sequential administration of sodium thiopental for anesthesia, pancuronium bromide to induce paralysis, and then potassium chloride to stop the heart and cause death. If anesthesia wasn't used, the condemned prisoner would suffocate and experience excruciating pain without being able to move.
Researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine analyzed execution protocol information from Texas and Virginia, which account for about 45 percent of executions in the United States. They found that executioners had no training in anesthesia; the drugs were administered remotely with no monitoring of the anesthesia; and there was no data collection, no documentation of anesthesia, and no post-procedure peer review.
The authors also analyzed toxicology reports from 49 prisoners executed in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. In 43 of the 49 cases, the authors found blood concentrations of the anesthetic sodium thiopental were lower than that required for surgery. In 21 cases, the concentrations were low enough to be consistent with awareness on the part of the prisoner during execution.
"Our data suggest that anesthesia methods in lethal injection in the U.S. are flawed. Failures in protocol design, implementation, monitoring and review might have led to unnecessary suffering of at least some of those executed," lead researcher Leonidas Koniaris said in a prepared statement. His team believes current death row practices might not even meet standard veterinary guidelines for putting down animals.
"Because participation of doctors in protocol design or execution is ethically prohibited, adequate anesthesia cannot be certain. Therefore to prevent unnecessary cruelty and suffering, cessation and public review of lethal injection is warranted," Koniaris said.
More information
The Death Penalty Informaton Center has more on the various methods of prisoner execution in the United States.
Oh, STFU, you British weenies.
Rush Limbaugh opened his show, the day after Terri Schindler died, thusly: "The same people who have so fervently sought the death of Terri Schiavo, will soon fight to save the life of convicted double murderer Scott Peterson."
Or something like that.
Says who?
My question would be - Was the act that got the perp into the death chamber in the first place humane or painless to the victim?
Just declare them to be in a vegetative state at that point. Problem solved.
Really easy to fix. Change the protocol dose to 10mg/kg ( twice the anesthesia dose). Not exactly a problem if they are overdosed now is it?
Hollywood is already on the anti-lethal injection bandwagon. In an episode of "Boston Legal" (ironically aired on the first Sunday after Terri's feeding tube was pulled), a main character commented on lethal injections thusly: "We're led to believe it's painless, peaceful, and even humane."
The AMA prohibits doctors from participating in any way in the administration of lethal injections, including the training of prison personnel. So now Lancet complains that prison personnel aren't doing it correctly!
A very practical idea...and a horrible take on how they killed Terri Schiavo.
LOL great post and screename.
The humane way is to starve them to death; as we know from Terry Schiavo, this is painless, they would not feel a thing....
"humane"
And not just humane .. euphoric and peaceful!
So .. I second your proposal.
Being forced to watch Chris Matthews is NOT humane.
Having your young daughters exposed to lesbians is NOT humane!
Being forced to watch Ted Kennedy eat is NOT humane!
Time to bring back the guillotine. And to he** with the French, we don't have to pay them royalties for it. ;)
Humane treatment for inhumane criminals, something is wrong with that.
Interesting. There was an old attorney in my office when I first started practicing whose first job as an attorney was to witness an execution at the Courthouse/jail in Pittsburgh. They used to do them right there in public, where the windows of the cell blocks opened into a big courtyard.
Imagine that!. A criminal suffering for 3 minutes!. I would say, let's get rid of the lethal injection and let's use only the electric chair. Or let's starve them. I've heard that is a wonderful death.
Yeah, they should just withhold food ans water from them instead, because, as we all know, that is the most humane way to kill people.
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