Category: Execution

Why It’s O.K. for Doctors to Participate in Executions

New York Times

Sandeep Jauhaur

On Thursday, Arkansas executed a 51-year-old convicted murderer named Ledell Lee, the first of four prisoners the state intends to execute by the end of the month. That would set a pace rarely if ever matched in the modern history of American capital punishment. The state’s rationale for its intended spree is morbidly pragmatic: The stock of one of its three execution drugs, the sedative midazolam, will expire at the end of April.

The three drugs in Arkansas’s execution protocol — midazolam; vecuronium bromide, a paralytic used during surgery that halts breathing; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart — are administered intravenously. The execution procedure therefore requires the insertion of catheters, controlled injection of lethal drugs and monitoring of a prisoner’s vital signs to confirm death. This makes it important that a doctor be present to assist in some capacity with the killing. . . [Full text]

 

Medical journal to retract paper after concerns organs came from executed prisoners

Study published in Liver International examined the outcomes of 564 transplantations at Zhejiang University’s First Affiliated hospital in China

The Guardian

A prestigious medical journal will retract a scientific paper from Chinese surgeons about liver transplantation after serious concerns were raised that the organs used in the study had come from executed prisoners of conscience.

The study was published last year in Liver International. It examined the outcomes of 564 liver transplantations performed consecutively at Zhejiang University’s First Affiliated hospital between April 2010 and October 2014.

According to the study authors, “all organs were procured from donors after cardiac death and no allografts [organs and tissue] obtained from executed prisoners were used”. . . .[Full text]

 

Death Row Doctor

New York Times

Lauren Knapp

One of the core pillars of medicine is “do no harm.” So how do the physicians who take part in the American institution of capital punishment rationalize their involvement? This film profiles Carlo Musso, a doctor who contemplates his moral compass as he participates in executions, though he personally opposes capital punishment. . . .[Full text]

Pfizer’s freedom of thought

 The Blade

Editorial

Pfizer Inc. – the pharmaceutical giant – has taken a bold stance against the use of its drugs for executions, one that will please many progressive opponents of the death penalty.

The drug company announced the following policy: If a government agency wants Pfizer to supply it with drugs of kinds sometimes used in (or considered for use in) lethal injections, it will have to certify that it is buying the drugs for medical, not punitive, use, and that it won’t resell them. Pfizer also said it will “act upon findings that reveal noncompliance.”

Thus, in practical terms, the policy will function as a ban on the use of Pfizer drugs in executions. . . [Full Text]

 

Pharmacists discouraged from providing meds for lethal injection

CNN

Debra Goldschmidt

CNN)The American Pharmacists Association is discouraging its members from participating in executions. On Monday, the group voted at its annual meeting to adopt a ban as an official policy, stating that “such activities are fundamentally contrary to the role of pharmacists as healthcare providers.”

This bolsters the association’s previous positions to oppose the use of the term “drug” for chemicals used in lethal injection and to oppose laws that require or prohibit pharmacists from participation in lethal injection cases. . . [Full text]