MmacFN
07-07-2006, 09:52 AM
Anesthesia doctors advised to avoid role in executions
In a potentially significant development in the controversy over lethal injection executions, the president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists has strongly urged members to "steer clear" of any participation in them. Dr. Orin F. Guidry, president of the 40,000 member group, posted a four-page "Message from the President" on the organization's Web site (www.asahq.org) (http://www.asahq.org/) Friday saying that anesthesiologists had been "reluctantly thrust into the middle (of a legal controversy)," and it was not their responsibility to solve problems created by the nation's judicial system.
"Lethal injection was not anesthesiology's idea," wrote Guidry, who works at Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans. "American society decided to have capital punishment as part of our legal system and to carry it out with lethal injection. ... The legal system has painted itself into this corner, and it is not our obligation to get it out."
Guidry said he has been following the issue since mid-February, when California officials postponed the execution of Michael Morales after being unable to comply with a federal judge's order to change the state's lethal injection procedures.
Guidry said he is not taking a position on the death penalty. He said he was prompted to write to the organization's members, however, largely because of a ruling issued last week by a federal judge in Kansas City, Mo.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. ordered a halt to executions in Missouri until the state makes major changes in its lethal injection procedures. The challenge was brought on behalf of Michael Taylor, sentenced to death for the murder of a 15-year-old girl in Kansas City in 1989.
Missouri, like all other states that use lethal injection, uses a three-drug cocktail: The first, sodium thiopental, is a sedative; the second, pancuronium bromide, is a paralytic agent; the third, potassium chloride, stops the heart from functioning.
Attorneys for Taylor say the third drug could cause excruciating pain in the event of insufficient anesthesia from the first and that Taylor would be unable to say anything because he would be paralyzed by the second.
Gaitan said that the state should make a board-certified anesthesiologist "responsible for the mixing of all drugs which are used in the lethal injection process. If the anesthesiologist does not actually administer the drugs through (an IV), he or she shall directly observe those individuals who do so."
Guidry noted that in 2001 the organization approved a recommendation supporting the American Medical Association's position that doctors should not participate in executions.
"Clearly," Guidry wrote, "an anesthesiologist complying with the Missouri ruling ... would be violating the AMA position which ASA has adopted. It is my belief that the court cannot modify physicians' ethical principles to meet its needs."
In a potentially significant development in the controversy over lethal injection executions, the president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists has strongly urged members to "steer clear" of any participation in them. Dr. Orin F. Guidry, president of the 40,000 member group, posted a four-page "Message from the President" on the organization's Web site (www.asahq.org) (http://www.asahq.org/) Friday saying that anesthesiologists had been "reluctantly thrust into the middle (of a legal controversy)," and it was not their responsibility to solve problems created by the nation's judicial system.
"Lethal injection was not anesthesiology's idea," wrote Guidry, who works at Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans. "American society decided to have capital punishment as part of our legal system and to carry it out with lethal injection. ... The legal system has painted itself into this corner, and it is not our obligation to get it out."
Guidry said he has been following the issue since mid-February, when California officials postponed the execution of Michael Morales after being unable to comply with a federal judge's order to change the state's lethal injection procedures.
Guidry said he is not taking a position on the death penalty. He said he was prompted to write to the organization's members, however, largely because of a ruling issued last week by a federal judge in Kansas City, Mo.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. ordered a halt to executions in Missouri until the state makes major changes in its lethal injection procedures. The challenge was brought on behalf of Michael Taylor, sentenced to death for the murder of a 15-year-old girl in Kansas City in 1989.
Missouri, like all other states that use lethal injection, uses a three-drug cocktail: The first, sodium thiopental, is a sedative; the second, pancuronium bromide, is a paralytic agent; the third, potassium chloride, stops the heart from functioning.
Attorneys for Taylor say the third drug could cause excruciating pain in the event of insufficient anesthesia from the first and that Taylor would be unable to say anything because he would be paralyzed by the second.
Gaitan said that the state should make a board-certified anesthesiologist "responsible for the mixing of all drugs which are used in the lethal injection process. If the anesthesiologist does not actually administer the drugs through (an IV), he or she shall directly observe those individuals who do so."
Guidry noted that in 2001 the organization approved a recommendation supporting the American Medical Association's position that doctors should not participate in executions.
"Clearly," Guidry wrote, "an anesthesiologist complying with the Missouri ruling ... would be violating the AMA position which ASA has adopted. It is my belief that the court cannot modify physicians' ethical principles to meet its needs."